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Minecraft Java is switching from OpenGL to Vulkan

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Re: Minecraft Java is switching from OpenGL to Vulkan

#11

Post by throwaway27447 »

pridkett wrote: post #9
throwaway27447 wrote: post #7

I'm frankly shocked microsoft has a java implementation. I thought they were the type of organization to pretend it didn't exist!

Java is the original version from Mojang/Notch. There’s always been enough of a community that killing it off to move away from Java would break so many extensions and servers would see an active revolt. There is the non-Java version (Bedrock), but that’s not nearly as extensible.

Ah, I had misread "minecraft" as "microsoft". I wasn't aware minecraft java was a thing. Crazy they have their own java implementation!

Re: Minecraft Java is switching from OpenGL to Vulkan

#12

Post by muststopmyths »

throwaway27447 wrote: post #11
pridkett wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Java is the original version from Mojang/Notch. There’s always been enough of a community that killing it off to move away from Java would break so many extensions and servers would see an active revolt. There is the non-Java version (Bedrock), but that’s not nearly as extensible.

Ah, I had misread "minecraft" as "microsoft". I wasn't aware minecraft java was a thing. Crazy they have their own java implementation!

It’s the Java version of the game, not a game version of Java.

There’s a native version called bedrock

Re: Minecraft Java is switching from OpenGL to Vulkan

#13

Post by Xorlev »

throwaway27447 wrote: post #11
pridkett wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Java is the original version from Mojang/Notch. There’s always been enough of a community that killing it off to move away from Java would break so many extensions and servers would see an active revolt. There is the non-Java version (Bedrock), but that’s not nearly as extensible.

Ah, I had misread "minecraft" as "microsoft". I wasn't aware minecraft java was a thing. Crazy they have their own java implementation!

Not a Java implementation, but the original game was written in Java. Later, Microsoft bought Minecraft and rewrote it (Bedrock edition) which runs on Xbox, tablets, etc. But, the community writes mods in Java.

Now both exist and get roughly the same feature set now, but the Java version remains popular given the vast variety of mods and servers.

Re: Minecraft Java is switching from OpenGL to Vulkan

#14

Post by PaulKeeble »

I hope this reduces the CPU overhead a bit on the main thread with some time. Quite a few games that ported from DX11 to 12 and openGL to Vulkan didn't just gain performance from the API swap it required taking advantage of the new higher parallel draw call capabilities. #

The main thread is often the limiting factor in minecraft. Minecraft just can't go as fast as the GPU could render the scene and even with quite a lot of shaders things are CPU bottlenecked. Hopefully this changes with time as modding minecraft could certainly do with a bit more CPU time free.

Re: Minecraft Java is switching from OpenGL to Vulkan

#15

Post by throwaway27447 »

Xorlev wrote: post #13
throwaway27447 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, I had misread "minecraft" as "microsoft". I wasn't aware minecraft java was a thing. Crazy they have their own java implementation!

Not a Java implementation, but the original game was written in Java. Later, Microsoft bought Minecraft and rewrote it (Bedrock edition) which runs on Xbox, tablets, etc. But, the community writes mods in Java. Now both exist and get roughly the same feature set now, but the Java version remains popular given the vast variety of mods and servers.

[dead]

Re: Minecraft Java is switching from OpenGL to Vulkan

#16

Post by pdpi »

cyber_kinetist wrote: post #6

Not a bad choice... since Minecraft Java edition only supports desktops, they don't have to deal with the abysmal Vulkan drivers on mobile. Though I thought a company large as Microsoft would have the resources to build a cross-platform RHI with the most stable API available for each platform (DX12 for Windows and Metal for macOS)...

A company as large as Microsoft has resources to do a lot of things, but you’re not borrowing resources from the Office team to help on this project.

The relevant measurement is the resources Mojang has as a studio. And I expect the decision here is that they don’t want to commit to the long term maintenance of three renderer implementations on the Java side.

Another concern is that modding is a major part of why Java Edition is so popular, and that includes shaders specifically. This is already going to cause chaos in the modding world as it is, no need to compound that by making shader mods that much more burdensome to maintain.

Re: Minecraft Java is switching from OpenGL to Vulkan

#17

Post by ozarkerD »

cyber_kinetist wrote: post #6

Not a bad choice... since Minecraft Java edition only supports desktops, they don't have to deal with the abysmal Vulkan drivers on mobile. Though I thought a company large as Microsoft would have the resources to build a cross-platform RHI with the most stable API available for each platform (DX12 for Windows and Metal for macOS)...

They use bgfx for bedrock edition.

https://github.com/bkaradzic/bgfx

https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/attribution

Re: Minecraft Java is switching from OpenGL to Vulkan

#18

Post by ozarkerD »

jimbob45 wrote: post #8
charcircuit wrote: post #2

I hope they have a solution to the notorious Vulkan shader compilation lag spikes.

I’m not even a neophyte here but why don’t precompiled shaders solve that?

Can't precompile for all the combinations of hardware, driver version, operating systems, etc... It's not really a vulkan specific problem and it's hard to solve. (for desktops anyways)

Re: Minecraft Java is switching from OpenGL to Vulkan

#19

Post by RiverCrochet »

throwaway27447 wrote: post #7

I'm frankly shocked microsoft has a java implementation. I thought they were the type of organization to pretend it didn't exist!

While you meant Minecraft here, to shock you further, please enjoy this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Java_Virtual_Machine

Re: Minecraft Java is switching from OpenGL to Vulkan

#20

Post by raincole »

jimbob45 wrote: post #8
charcircuit wrote: post #2

I hope they have a solution to the notorious Vulkan shader compilation lag spikes.

I’m not even a neophyte here but why don’t precompiled shaders solve that?

It kinda does. Kinda. Steam constantly downloads precompiled shaders for your games. Especially on Linux.
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