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Update: To be clear, they did not actually mean Deus Ex was going Vulkan. They misspoke a bit during the livestream and they aren't saying what game it will be yet.

Note: Article updated to be clearer, with the actual quote of what they said.

I didn't expect this so soon, but it looks like early next year we may have a Linux port from Feral Interactive that uses Vulkan.

Linux gamers! We just announced, live on Twitch, that we are looking towards Vulkan implementation in the first half of next year.

— Feral Interactive (@feralgames) October 27, 2016


They confirmed during the livestream that Deus Ex: Mankind Divided will use OpenGL on Linux, but they also said:

QuoteWe can confirm that Deus Ex: Mankind Divided on Linux is using OpenGL, and we're very happy to announce that we are looking towards Vulkan implementation in the first half of next year.


So, while we are getting OpenGL for now, the possibility of Vulkan so soon is fun news.

Just remember though, Vulkan won't automatically gives us better performance. Like OpenGL it does depend on how it's used, how the original engine was designed and so on.

It will be interesting to see if Vulkan is added into any of their previous games, to see what difference it makes there. Could make for some fun benchmarking.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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kon14 Oct 28, 2016
Quoting: srlsboyBethesda actually took the time to port Skyrim to Nintendo's NX platform.
That new console was rumored to offer Vulkan support but Nintendo went for a lock-in API called NVN.

We know nothing about NVN other than the fact it's a "Gaming" API developed by Nvidia. We've also had no new info regarding the switch (after the First Look vid) afaik, therefore for all we know NVN could be irrelevant to graphics and while I do believe that if that were to be the case we'd have probably heard about Vulkan powering the Switch as well, there's no reason why Nintendo wouldn't support an additional graphics api.

Nintendo could still add compatibility for complementary apis other than its proprietary developed one, similarly to what all other consoles tend todo.

Nintendo lost in all of the latest console wars (except for handhelds maybe?). If they want people to go out and buy this underdog thing they'll need third party game support and not every publisher is going to support nintendo unless its easy or profitable enough for them to do so. Therefore Nintendo is likely to support Vulkan as a compatibility option for pc devs to bring their games over faster (well, assuming pc devs will be using vulkan by then in any case :P )
0aTT Oct 28, 2016
Quoting: bubexeldoom! please! bethesda please give use some love...
The crazy thing is they just would have to omit Denuvo and Doom would run perfectly in Wine again. I would even buy it in this case and would certainly not be the only one. See Skyrim. However, cracks are probably a problem. I know some people who play cracked Games to a great extent. Nevertheless, I wonder whether copy protection such as Denuvo is an economic advantage in the long term.
amonobeax Oct 28, 2016
Quoting: AnxiousInfusion
Quoting: BlackBloodRumMaybe now we will find out just how well Vulkan can really perform on wait hang on what OS? oh yeah. GNU/Linux!

Hold up, it's still going to be just a port. We will only truly know once a game has been built from the ground up for Vulkan.

Exactly.


I really hope I'm wrong but I doubt that Feral's Vulkan versions will have Doom level performances.

In order to have that kind of an impact Vulkan need to be implemented at the GAME ENGINE level, which Feral can't/won't do AFAIK (would be too costly probably). Almost all their ports currently using wrappers also indicate the same.

In other words the "Vulkan" version of the game will most likely benefit those gamers that have poor OpenGL performance (cough AMD owners) because of subpar drivers.

If I'm right NVIDIA users won't feel much perf difference between OpenGL and Vulkan, sadly


Last edited by amonobeax on 28 October 2016 at 9:17 am UTC
kirgahn Oct 28, 2016
Quoting: amonobeaxIn other words the "Vulkan" version of the game will most likely benefit those gamers that have poor OpenGL performance (cough AMD owners) because of subpar drivers.
furthermore, AMDGPU open source drivers use RADV, since AMD still hasn't live up to its promise of delivering an open source Vulkan implemantation. RADV is nice and coming along at a fast rate, but, lookin at benchmarks, it seems to perform worse than Mesa/OpenGL at the moment.
Maquis196 Oct 28, 2016
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Quoting: LinasBit off-topic, sorry, but can anyone give me any pointers on how to use Vulkan on an Optimus laptop? I currently rely on Bumblebee, but it does not seem to support Vulkan.

As a fellow optimus user I ditched bumblebee about 6mths ago. It's unsupported and extremely fragile, got annoyed trying to get it working whenever it broke which was often.

Using nvidia Prime is much easier imho, you're either gaming or "working" so trivial to jump between the modes.
Sgt.Romeo9 Oct 28, 2016
I understand that this great and the fact that they are looking into it and simply by telling us that Linux gamers can look forward to Vulkan games in the new year indirectly tells us that Feral are not looking to stop anytime soon with Linux support, which is all great. That being said though, I do feel its important to mention that Deus Ex Mankind Divided is using DirectX12 on Windows and the Mac version is running on Metal. The Linux version is the only one that is going to be running on old tech (OpenGL). Just thought I'd mention that aswell.
STiAT Oct 28, 2016
While I don't expect it to have more FPS in Vulkan, I expect it to have more "stable" FPS, aka less frame drops / minfps which we have due to bottlenecks.

The only reason they'd consider a Vulkan port is probably to test their implementation for DX12->Vulkan layer, for the reason that DX:MD has DX12 support by now, making it an ideal test case.

We will continue to see it that way:
DX11 things will be ported to OpenGL
DX12 things will be ported to Vulkan
neowiz73 Oct 28, 2016
this is awesome news, i wonder just how many games they will be able to port over using Vulkan? if that makes porting easier in the long run with the right dev tools. this should be some interesting things to come next year.
sr_ls_boy Oct 28, 2016
Quoting: SgtRomeo9...I do feel its important to mention that Deus Ex Mankind Divided is using DirectX12 on Windows and the Mac version is running on Metal. The Linux version is the only one that is going to be running on old tech (OpenGL). Just thought I'd mention that aswell.

Feral never saw the DirectX12 code until they were well into development.
DirectX 12 support only went public in the first week of September.
johndoe86x Oct 28, 2016
In the near future, I'd like to see Vulkan make use of multiple GPU's. Right now, the main reason I play the Linux titles I own in Windows is because of SLI support.

Don't worry, I know the rules on buying from the Linux platform and playing it for a week on there to make sure it counts as a Linux sale ;)
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