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To be fair, only the Switch does. Xbox One/Series Families and PS4/5 do not. It’s not just a “Sony thing”.
by Operyl 3y ago
To be fair, only the Switch does. Xbox One/Series Families and PS4/5 do not. It’s not just a “Sony thing”.
- jsheard 3y agoVulkan also isn't the primary API on the Switch, it has a proprietary API called NVN which is apparently what most games actually use. It having OpenGL and Vulkan is a more of a bonus feature, probably taking advantage of Nvidia's already existing driver implementation, rather than Nintendo going all-in on the open standards.
- shmerl 3y agoNintendo aren't happy about that and they want to avoid this split. They've been working on some Vulkan extensions to address uses cases they need. So they'll likely double down on that and drop that NVN down the road to avoid reinventing the wheel. See: https://www.khronos.org/blog/you-can-use-vulkan-without-pipelines-today https://www.khronos.org/blog/you-can-use-vulkan-without-pipe... I agree, given general Nintendo's reputation it's kind of unusual. But that's what we should be seeing from Sony and MS as well instead of their NIHs.
- jsheard 3y agohttps://mynintendonews.com/2022/03/01/nvidia-leaks-mention-nvn2-nvn-is-the-switch-graphics-api-suggesting-revised-switch-model-on-the-horizon/ https://mynintendonews.com/2022/03/01/nvidia-leaks-mention-n... They're going to the trouble of developing NVN2 for their next system, it doesn't sound like they're doubling down on Vulkan.
- shmerl 3y agoInteresting. May be it's "right hand doesn't know what left hand is doing" kind of situation. Some developers there want to advance Vulkan while others are hung on NIH. It's not uncommon in huge companies. Or may be it's just a longer term effort and they need to keep updating NVN until Vulkan improvements are sufficient to stop doing it. The Vulkan post mentions this: > VK_EXT_shader_object represents the culmination of years of work to bring Vulkan developers ever more powerful and easier-to-use ways to manage shaders and state. We’re proud of what we have achieved and can’t wait to see what developers can do with this extension once you get your hands on it. So it sounds like they've been working on that for a while. They also mention some pending items like ray tracing in that context. In the end, constantly reinventing the wheel is just pointless and wastes resources. So it makes sense for them to focus on Vulkan.