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Vulkan – Graphics and computing belong together

khronos.org

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Re: Vulkan – Graphics and computing belong together

#11

Post by saschispatzi »

jamesfmilne wrote: post #5
fizixer wrote: post #2

I had a long debate on multiple forums recently regarding the almost uselessness of OpenGL in presence of something like OpenCL, especially when OpenGL does its job (as a graphics library) in a very crappy manner by trying to be part-framework, part-library, and not doing either properly, and making the life of a graphics programmer a living hell, who has to code 80% of the graphics pipeline by hand or using third pa…

I've spent 15 years working on OpenGL, but I'd kick it to the kerb in a heartbeat. AMD and NVIDIA are free to implement Vulkan on Windows and Linux, but the problem is that we will probably be stuck with OpenGL 4.0 on Mac OS X for the foreseeable future.

I don't know too much about the topic (I wish I did), but how what makes you think so? I see that it says "Will work on any platform that supports OpenGL ES 3.1 and up" and Apple platforms seem not to support that (as of now). However Apple is part of the working group, doesn't that make it very likely they are working on an implementation, too?

Re: Vulkan – Graphics and computing belong together

#15

Post by jitl »

jamesfmilne wrote: post #5
fizixer wrote: post #2

I had a long debate on multiple forums recently regarding the almost uselessness of OpenGL in presence of something like OpenCL, especially when OpenGL does its job (as a graphics library) in a very crappy manner by trying to be part-framework, part-library, and not doing either properly, and making the life of a graphics programmer a living hell, who has to code 80% of the graphics pipeline by hand or using third pa…

I've spent 15 years working on OpenGL, but I'd kick it to the kerb in a heartbeat. AMD and NVIDIA are free to implement Vulkan on Windows and Linux, but the problem is that we will probably be stuck with OpenGL 4.0 on Mac OS X for the foreseeable future.

From the website:

  > Will work on any platform that supports OpenGL ES 3.1 and up
Furthermore, Apple is on the working group.

Re: Vulkan – Graphics and computing belong together

#16

Post by readstoomuch »

saschispatzi wrote: post #11
jamesfmilne wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've spent 15 years working on OpenGL, but I'd kick it to the kerb in a heartbeat. AMD and NVIDIA are free to implement Vulkan on Windows and Linux, but the problem is that we will probably be stuck with OpenGL 4.0 on Mac OS X for the foreseeable future.

I don't know too much about the topic (I wish I did), but how what makes you think so? I see that it says "Will work on any platform that supports OpenGL ES 3.1 and up" and Apple platforms seem not to support that (as of now). However Apple is part of the working group, doesn't that make it very likely they are working on an implementation, too?

Apple are traditionally tardy when it comes to OpenGL. Yosemite is still on 4.1 (2010 release), lacking support for things like compute shaders.

Re: Vulkan – Graphics and computing belong together

#18

Post by pjmlp »

Looks quite nice, actually.

I thought it might have turned into a LongPeaks 2.0, but from the initial overview it is quite interesting.

And I really like it seems to be moving forward into a more language agnostic friendly API and better tooling support.

Re: Vulkan – Graphics and computing belong together

#19

Post by pjmlp »

fizixer wrote: post #2

I had a long debate on multiple forums recently regarding the almost uselessness of OpenGL in presence of something like OpenCL, especially when OpenGL does its job (as a graphics library) in a very crappy manner by trying to be part-framework, part-library, and not doing either properly, and making the life of a graphics programmer a living hell, who has to code 80% of the graphics pipeline by hand or using third pa…

Google tried this when they introduced RenderScript, but they dropped support for graphics calculations on the second release and steered it into a way to use C99 with GPU capabilities, without having to drop into the NDK.

Re: Vulkan – Graphics and computing belong together

#20

Post by jamesfmilne »

saschispatzi wrote: post #11
jamesfmilne wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've spent 15 years working on OpenGL, but I'd kick it to the kerb in a heartbeat. AMD and NVIDIA are free to implement Vulkan on Windows and Linux, but the problem is that we will probably be stuck with OpenGL 4.0 on Mac OS X for the foreseeable future.

I don't know too much about the topic (I wish I did), but how what makes you think so? I see that it says "Will work on any platform that supports OpenGL ES 3.1 and up" and Apple platforms seem not to support that (as of now). However Apple is part of the working group, doesn't that make it very likely they are working on an implementation, too?

I'm a cynic, but don't get me wrong, I'd be delighted if Vulkan or OpenCL 2.1 show up in OS X 10.11.

Khronos is a funny beast, a bit like the United Nations. Just because these companies are all part of it doesn't mean they actually like each other and want to cooperate!

Apple has famously lagged far behind with their implementation of OpenGL. They only support OpenGL 4.1, the spec for which was released in 2010 [1].

Their developer tools are also pretty lacking on the desktop, and because they keep their drivers closed, external vendors can't do much to help. (Apple write their own drivers for Intel, NVIDIA and AMD GPUs, and even the engineers at those companies have little insight to what goes on behind Apple's closed doors.)

Perhaps this new, streamlined Vulkan API will be easier and more attractive for Apple to implement.

We live in hope...

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenGL#OpenGL_4.1

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