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New Steam Client Beta adds fixes for 'upcoming' Vulkan games

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So here's something fun, the latest Steam Client Beta has 'Fixed compatibility issues with some upcoming Vulkan games'. Begin mindless speculation.

Now, before everyone gets too excited, it could simply be for Doom which has a planned Vulkan version, but is not coming to Linux as far as I know. It specifically says "games" and if it was for Doom there would be no reason to be ambiguous as it's been publicly announced that is going to have Vulkan.

That said, I love a bit of mindless speculation and I haven't heard of many other games coming to Vulkan at all, seriously, and I have rather a lot of contacts now.

Some more food for thought, SteamOS was recently updated with much newer graphics drivers. It's possible again this was done due to games coming with Vulkan.

This is going to be an interesting year. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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natewardawg Jul 1, 2016
Too bad it's under the "General" section instead of being under a specific platform. :/
tuubi Jul 1, 2016
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Quoting: natewardawgToo bad it's under the "General" section instead of being under a specific platform. :/
Why is that bad?
Shmerl Jul 1, 2016
It's rather simple. UE and Unity will get Vulkan support (UE sooner than Unity), and many in-development games will implicitly start using it in result. That's already quite a lot. Other engines also will catch up at some point.


Last edited by Shmerl on 1 July 2016 at 10:09 pm UTC
natewardawg Jul 1, 2016
Quoting: tuubi
Quoting: natewardawgToo bad it's under the "General" section instead of being under a specific platform. :/
Why is that bad?

That's a fair question. Because if it were under the "Linux" section we would know that it was specifically for upcoming Vulkan Linux games. :)

To be fair, I know this has to be under the "General" section since it affects both Windows and Linux.
Shmerl Jul 1, 2016
See https://trello.com/b/gHooNW9I/ue4-roadmap (search for Vulkan there).


Last edited by Shmerl on 1 July 2016 at 10:11 pm UTC
sarmad Jul 1, 2016
If Doom is already going to support Vulkan, why not support Linux as well? What else is remaining that they refuse to support Linux? I'm pretty sure the remaining work is about one week of work or so, and I'm pretty sure the tiny Linux market will cover that one week of work and make some profit as well.
Shmerl Jul 1, 2016
Quoting: sarmadIf Doom is already going to support Vulkan, why not support Linux as well?

Because it's Bethesda. Times of idSoftware are long gone.
Liam Dawe Jul 1, 2016
Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: sarmadIf Doom is already going to support Vulkan, why not support Linux as well?

Because it's Bethesda. Times of idSoftware are long gone.
This, like I've said before, there's a lot more to a game than a graphics API. Anyone who says Vulkan will make more Linux ports is just wrong.
Shmerl Jul 1, 2016
Quoting: liamdawe
Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: sarmadIf Doom is already going to support Vulkan, why not support Linux as well?

Because it's Bethesda. Times of idSoftware are long gone.
This, like I've said before, there's a lot more to a game than a graphics API. Anyone who says Vulkan will make more Linux ports is just wrong.

Vulkan can make it cheaper, both when Vulkan Windows game is ported to Linux and when DX12 one is (because they are close). So potentially it does help. But it's not a magic pill for automatic portability of course.


Last edited by Shmerl on 1 July 2016 at 10:28 pm UTC
Segata Sanshiro Jul 1, 2016
Even if these games don't come to Linux, it should still be seen as a win if more people are adopting Vulkan over DX12, then it will mean Linux ports will be more likely in the future.
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