5 ms·

on top of that more mature "easy mode" wrappers over Vulkan are beginning to exist too.

kevincox 6y ago
They are beginning to exist but it is very unlikely that these will have the stability that OpenGL has. They will likely be more convenient, but if you are building something today that doesn't have very high performance needs sticking to the OpenGL API is probably a good way to ensure that you won't have to migrate to something else for a very, very long time.
- nicoburns 6y ago
  The other good option that's likely to be supported for a long time is WebGPU.
- moron4hire 6y ago
  What "stability that OpenGL has"?
  - badsectoracula 6y ago
    The OpenGL API is standardized and has multiple implementations so it isn't susceptible to some layer/library developer waking up one morning and deciding to break the API to make it "cleaner" or "easier" or whatever. Hell, even though Khronos tried to do exactly that with the core/compatibility schism, pretty much all existing implementations decided breaking people's code is a stupid move and mostly ignored it (Apple being an exception but Apple hates developers[0] and their OpenGL implementation was always awful - even then, Apple's implementation is still an implementation of a stable API). In practice it means that your currently working code will remain working in the future and there are good chances that you'll be able to port it in other places with either official or unofficial implementations. [0] OK, OK, i know, Apple doesn't "hate" developers, they just do not care about them at all and they'd happily break things like a hippo dancing in a glassware shop if they believe that would make their own developers feel better.
    - bitwize 6y ago
      Multiple implementations suck because implementors rarely aim for full compliance, and now you have to have as many code paths as there are implementations to account for the differences between them. Best to have a single implementation that everybody agrees on -- like the winner of the graphics API wars, Direct3D.
      - Reelin 6y ago
        > Best to have a single implementation that everybody agrees on -- like the winner of the graphics API wars, Direct3D. Ah yes, D3D, well known for its broad cross platform support! In all seriousness, would a Linux D3D driver even be legal? I have to assume that major legal or technical barriers exist, otherwise why wouldn't a GPU vendor have developed one at some point?
        imtringued 6y ago
        D3D drivers for Linux exist but it's through a compatibility layer. https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk
        Reelin 6y ago
        I don't think a compatibility layer implemented in software is the same as a driver implemented by the vendor that interacts directly with the hardware.
        Nullabillity 6y ago
        Mesa actually does support D3D9 natively for AMD (and, sort of, Intel) GPUs via the Gallium Nine project, and there is a branch of Wine that uses it. But these days that's mostly superseded by DXVK (which implements D3D9 through 11 over Vulkan, kind of like Zink in the OP) and VKD3D (D3D12 over Vulkan).
      - imtringued 6y ago
        I don't know what you are talking about. Direct3D is Windows only. Metal is iOS and Mac only. Vulkan is in theory supported on all platforms but UWP doesn't allow it and Mac requires a compatibility wrapper. If anything the graphics API war is still going on.
- Nullabillity 6y ago
  As long as Vulkan itself stays stable, who cares, just pin the version of the wrapper?
- bsder 6y ago
  > if you are building something today that doesn't have very high performance needs sticking to the OpenGL API is probably a good way to ensure that you won't have to migrate to something else for a very, very long time. That is, in fact, precisely the wrong advice. Vulkan runs on Windows, Linux, and OS X (via MoltenVk). Nothing else does. OS X runs OpenGL 3.Ancient and has now dropped OpenGL. OpenGL drivers for Linux tend to be laughably worse than the Vulkan drivers. All of the major gaming companies have basically said "We have no OpenGL jobs. We have a ton of unfilled Vulkan jobs." If you aren't using DirectWhatever, Vulkan is going to be the only useful 3D API very shortly.
  - abnercoimbre 6y ago
    Seconding everything here. It's also worth nothing MoltenVK development was sponsored by Valve (that's how they get Dota 2 on macOS.)
  - badsectoracula 6y ago
    OS X runs OpenGL 4.1 and is still available even if deprecated. If you are considering MoltenVK as a viable option then perhaps Zink over MoltenVK would work in the future. Note that most of the newer OpenGL features are largely about sending stuff faster to the GPU, not enabling new GPU features - you can do a lot of stuff with OpenGL 4.1. IMO if you are struggling for CPU performance with OpenGL then you might be better moving to Vulkan. But if this isn't your bottleneck then there isn't a reason to not stick with OpenGL. If OpenGL drivers on Linux are "laughably worse" (though in practice i haven't much of a difference) then the solution is to improve those drivers. It'll be better for all the thousands of existing applications too.
    - bsder 6y ago
      > OS X runs OpenGL 4.1 and is still available even if deprecated. You are correct. I misspoke. I meant to say 4.Ancient since 4.1 is 10 years old now. > Note that most of the newer OpenGL features are largely about sending stuff faster to the GPU, not enabling new GPU features For shaders, I certainly find that not true. There are a lot of shader features that got added over 10 years. And, I believe things even as important as Uniform Buffer Objects are later than 4.1. OpenGL 4.1 just ... isn't good in this day and age. > If OpenGL drivers on Linux are "laughably worse" (though in practice i haven't much of a difference) then the solution is to improve those drivers. I totally disagree. There simply aren't enough people in the Linux ecosystem to maintain those drivers and Vulkan drivers. I'd rather those developers all work on the newer and better API.
pjmlp 6y ago
They already exist, a checkbox away on a middleware engine, that is how much I want to meddle with it. Khronos is now driving the Anari effort, because most visualization toolkits could not be bothered to move forward into Vulkan. https://www.khronos.org/anari https://www.khronos.org/anari Pity that they decided to just bother with C99 though.
- johnnycerberus 6y ago
  > Pity that they decided to just bother with C99 though. Isn't this the trend nowadays? I've seen recently that simple languages are trending again, languages like C, Go, Zig, Erlang, Lua. I think we hit the ceiling with mammoths like C++ and Scala.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    Not at all, proprietary graphics APIs provide modern bindings in C++, Objective-C, Swift.
    - amaranth 6y ago
      C99 ensures it can be used with basically every other language and can be compiled for almost every platform. Bindings on top of that for other languages would be nice but can be provided by the community too. If it was C++, Rust, Nim, etc you'd have to write it in a way that allows exposing a C API anyway so the only advantage would be for people creating an implementation of the API getting to use a better language internally.
      - pjmlp 6y ago
        That can be achieved with an IDL that isn't unsafe by default and the cause of endless security bugs. Then everyone can generate whatever bindings they feel like in an automated way.
  - pantalaimon 6y ago
    But why C99 instead of C11?

They are beginning to exist but it is very unlikely that these will have the stability that OpenGL has. They will likely be more convenient, but if you are building something today that doesn't have very high performance needs sticking to the OpenGL API is probably a good way to ensure that you won't have to migrate to something else for a very, very long time.

nicoburns 6y ago
The other good option that's likely to be supported for a long time is WebGPU.
moron4hire 6y ago
What "stability that OpenGL has"?
- badsectoracula 6y ago
  The OpenGL API is standardized and has multiple implementations so it isn't susceptible to some layer/library developer waking up one morning and deciding to break the API to make it "cleaner" or "easier" or whatever. Hell, even though Khronos tried to do exactly that with the core/compatibility schism, pretty much all existing implementations decided breaking people's code is a stupid move and mostly ignored it (Apple being an exception but Apple hates developers[0] and their OpenGL implementation was always awful - even then, Apple's implementation is still an implementation of a stable API). In practice it means that your currently working code will remain working in the future and there are good chances that you'll be able to port it in other places with either official or unofficial implementations. [0] OK, OK, i know, Apple doesn't "hate" developers, they just do not care about them at all and they'd happily break things like a hippo dancing in a glassware shop if they believe that would make their own developers feel better.
  - bitwize 6y ago
    Multiple implementations suck because implementors rarely aim for full compliance, and now you have to have as many code paths as there are implementations to account for the differences between them. Best to have a single implementation that everybody agrees on -- like the winner of the graphics API wars, Direct3D.
    - Reelin 6y ago
      > Best to have a single implementation that everybody agrees on -- like the winner of the graphics API wars, Direct3D. Ah yes, D3D, well known for its broad cross platform support! In all seriousness, would a Linux D3D driver even be legal? I have to assume that major legal or technical barriers exist, otherwise why wouldn't a GPU vendor have developed one at some point?
      - imtringued 6y ago
        D3D drivers for Linux exist but it's through a compatibility layer. https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk
        Reelin 6y ago
        I don't think a compatibility layer implemented in software is the same as a driver implemented by the vendor that interacts directly with the hardware.
      - Nullabillity 6y ago
        Mesa actually does support D3D9 natively for AMD (and, sort of, Intel) GPUs via the Gallium Nine project, and there is a branch of Wine that uses it. But these days that's mostly superseded by DXVK (which implements D3D9 through 11 over Vulkan, kind of like Zink in the OP) and VKD3D (D3D12 over Vulkan).
    - imtringued 6y ago
      I don't know what you are talking about. Direct3D is Windows only. Metal is iOS and Mac only. Vulkan is in theory supported on all platforms but UWP doesn't allow it and Mac requires a compatibility wrapper. If anything the graphics API war is still going on.
Nullabillity 6y ago
As long as Vulkan itself stays stable, who cares, just pin the version of the wrapper?
bsder 6y ago
> if you are building something today that doesn't have very high performance needs sticking to the OpenGL API is probably a good way to ensure that you won't have to migrate to something else for a very, very long time. That is, in fact, precisely the wrong advice. Vulkan runs on Windows, Linux, and OS X (via MoltenVk). Nothing else does. OS X runs OpenGL 3.Ancient and has now dropped OpenGL. OpenGL drivers for Linux tend to be laughably worse than the Vulkan drivers. All of the major gaming companies have basically said "We have no OpenGL jobs. We have a ton of unfilled Vulkan jobs." If you aren't using DirectWhatever, Vulkan is going to be the only useful 3D API very shortly.
- abnercoimbre 6y ago
  Seconding everything here. It's also worth nothing MoltenVK development was sponsored by Valve (that's how they get Dota 2 on macOS.)
- badsectoracula 6y ago
  OS X runs OpenGL 4.1 and is still available even if deprecated. If you are considering MoltenVK as a viable option then perhaps Zink over MoltenVK would work in the future. Note that most of the newer OpenGL features are largely about sending stuff faster to the GPU, not enabling new GPU features - you can do a lot of stuff with OpenGL 4.1. IMO if you are struggling for CPU performance with OpenGL then you might be better moving to Vulkan. But if this isn't your bottleneck then there isn't a reason to not stick with OpenGL. If OpenGL drivers on Linux are "laughably worse" (though in practice i haven't much of a difference) then the solution is to improve those drivers. It'll be better for all the thousands of existing applications too.
  - bsder 6y ago
    > OS X runs OpenGL 4.1 and is still available even if deprecated. You are correct. I misspoke. I meant to say 4.Ancient since 4.1 is 10 years old now. > Note that most of the newer OpenGL features are largely about sending stuff faster to the GPU, not enabling new GPU features For shaders, I certainly find that not true. There are a lot of shader features that got added over 10 years. And, I believe things even as important as Uniform Buffer Objects are later than 4.1. OpenGL 4.1 just ... isn't good in this day and age. > If OpenGL drivers on Linux are "laughably worse" (though in practice i haven't much of a difference) then the solution is to improve those drivers. I totally disagree. There simply aren't enough people in the Linux ecosystem to maintain those drivers and Vulkan drivers. I'd rather those developers all work on the newer and better API.

pjmlp 6y ago

They already exist, a checkbox away on a middleware engine, that is how much I want to meddle with it. Khronos is now driving the Anari effort, because most visualization toolkits could not be bothered to move forward into Vulkan. https://www.khronos.org/anari https://www.khronos.org/anari Pity that they decided to just bother with C99 though.

johnnycerberus 6y ago
> Pity that they decided to just bother with C99 though. Isn't this the trend nowadays? I've seen recently that simple languages are trending again, languages like C, Go, Zig, Erlang, Lua. I think we hit the ceiling with mammoths like C++ and Scala.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  Not at all, proprietary graphics APIs provide modern bindings in C++, Objective-C, Swift.
  - amaranth 6y ago
    C99 ensures it can be used with basically every other language and can be compiled for almost every platform. Bindings on top of that for other languages would be nice but can be provided by the community too. If it was C++, Rust, Nim, etc you'd have to write it in a way that allows exposing a C API anyway so the only advantage would be for people creating an implementation of the API getting to use a better language internally.
    - pjmlp 6y ago
      That can be achieved with an IDL that isn't unsafe by default and the cause of endless security bugs. Then everyone can generate whatever bindings they feel like in an automated way.
- pantalaimon 6y ago
  But why C99 instead of C11?