I’m an ex-graphics expert and this is a sufficiently good summary. GL is based on a very outdated model of the GPU as a register-based state machine that grew

I’m an ex-graphics expert and this is a sufficiently good summary. GL is based on a very outdated model of the GPU as a register-based state machine that grew bigger and bigger for decades. Meanwhile, the hardware moved towards being able to switch rapidly between pre-configured structs representing chunks of state. GL drivers have had to reconcile an interface where you make changes incrementally grinding against an implementation where dynamic state is super expensive and lots of pre-configured state is super cheap. Vulkan presents an interface much closer to the current hardware implementations —with all of their problems and opportunities brought to the surface.