Valve recommends developers choose Vulkan over DirectX 12

by Mark Tyson on 24 September 2015, 13:06

Tags: Valve, Khronos Group

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Vulkan, an open standard API for high-efficiency access to graphics and compute, has emerged this year as the successor to OpenGL. It offers a unified specification that, like rival modern APIs such as Microsoft's DirectX 12 and Apple's METAL, "minimizes driver overhead and enables multi-threaded GPU command preparation for optimal graphics and compute performance," but it does so on a diverse range of mobile, desktop, console and embedded platforms.

Valve has put its weight behind the Vulkan API and wants developers to consider using it rather than spending their time and resources making games with Microsoft DirectX 12 or Apple METAL.

Valve's Dan Ginsburg starts to talk at 1hr 40mins

In a recent video presentation from SIGGRAPH 2015 Valve's Dan Ginsburg took to the stage to put forward the case for Vulkan. In the video embedded above, Ginsburg asserts that Vulkan is "the right way forward for powering the next generation of games". Going on to mention rival API's specifically he said that "Unless you are aggressive enough to be shipping a DX12 game this year, I would argue that there is really not much reason to ever create a DX12 back end for your game". Ginsburg went on to say that Vulkan "offers so much more" than single vendor, single platform alternatives.

Back in September Intel demonstrated the significant benefits of the Vulkan API on one of its quad core processors with integrated graphics.

Nintendo latest to join the Vulkan fold

In related news Nintendo has joined the Khronos Group. As a member, Nintendo will be able to participate in the development of Vulkan. Imagination Technologies has already shown off a Mario themed demo with high-quality physically-based shading, correct specular reflections and more. Nintendo faced criticism for the graphical abilities of its previous Wii and Wii U consoles but Vulkan might help it pull ahead with its codenamed NX console.



HEXUS Forums :: 33 Comments

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100% agree with them open standards that work across multiple platforms are the way forward IMO.
Pardon my ignorance, but aren't these kind of low-level API's only really of interest to folks either doing action games on mobile, or those developing game frameworks? I remember being told some time ago that all the “proper” games development these days uses one of the many game engines, Source; Frostbyte; etc.

Second thing, while I applaud the idea of open standards for this kind of thing (mainly because I'm assuming it'll make decent porting a lot easier), anything Apple-y seems to be missing from that support list. Now is that because they just haven't got around to it (yet), or is Apple playing their “my way or the highway” gambit again.
crossy
…I remember being told some time ago that all the “proper” games development these days uses one of the many game engines, Source; Frostbyte; etc…

Would the choice of game engine for a project be affected though, with for example UE4 currently supporting DX11/12 rendering?
On the downside, DX12 has the backing of Microsoft and their wallet to assist with development and support. Vulcan does not.
crossy
Pardon my ignorance, but aren't these kind of low-level API's only really of interest to folks either doing action games on mobile, or those developing game frameworks? I remember being told some time ago that all the “proper” games development these days uses one of the many game engines, Source; Frostbyte; etc.

Second thing, while I applaud the idea of open standards for this kind of thing (mainly because I'm assuming it'll make decent porting a lot easier), anything Apple-y seems to be missing from that support list. Now is that because they just haven't got around to it (yet), or is Apple playing their “my way or the highway” gambit again.

Many games are made from scratch, especially in the indie scene. Instead of “engines” they grab together a bunch of specific libraries for various parts and build it themselves. Vulkan would be one of those libraries.

Likewise, game engines also use these graphics libraries. So you want UE4 to be Vulkan forward, rather than DX12 forward, for example. But that is up to the engnine maintainers.