Check out our Monthly Survey Page to see what our users are running.
We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

FNA 20.09 is out with the new FNA3D, brings experimental Vulkan support

By - | Views: 12,863

A big day for the FNA project, as they've released a massive new release which pulls in FNA3D, the new modern and much more advanced 3D graphics library for FNA.

Refresher: FNA is a reimplementation of the Microsoft XNA Game Studio 4.0 Refresh libraries. It's primarily developed by Ethan Lee, who has ported a ton of games to Linux and macOS. FNA can bring games to tons of platforms and you can see a big list here. Some notable titles include: Celeste, Dust: An Elysian Tail, Bastion, FEZ, Owlboy and so on.

FNA 20.09 is a major release thanks to FNA3D, which replaces IGLDevice as the new graphics library for FNA. Thanks to that, the graphics API support now available with FNA includes:

  • Direct3D 11 is now supported and is the default for Windows/Xbox
  • Vulkan is now available as an experimental backend
  • Metal is now the default for Apple platforms
  • ModernGL and ThreadedGL have been removed
  • THREADED_GL and DISABLE_THREADING have been removed
  • MojoShader is now statically linked directly into FNA3D
  • SDL2_image has been replaced with FNA3D_Image, which is built into FNA3D

This release also adds experimental support for WebAssembly via Emscripten and mono-wasm, and upgrades FAudio (the accuracy-focused XAudio reimplementation for open platforms) to the 20.09 release too.

Speaking about the release, developer Ethan Lee said, "Here it is, the official release of FNA3D! We now use native code not just for our platform layer and audio subsystem, but our graphics subsystem as well. In addition to providing a substantial performance improvement all around, it also adds numerous features including D3D11, Metal-by-default, built-in image I/O, and even a Vulkan beta! This is probably the biggest release since the FAudio rewrite, but not to worry: FNA3D has been extensively tested over the past 6 months, with several games on several platforms already using it in public builds today.".

Find out more about FNA on the official site, you can also sponsor Ethan Lee on GitHub.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Game Dev, Open Source, Toolkit | Apps: FNA
18 Likes
About the author -
author picture
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.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
5 comments

a0kami Sep 3, 2020
I'm a bit confused, is this helping for translation layers or for developers to natively port their original game or both ?
Sure sounds good though!
Liam Dawe Sep 3, 2020
Quoting: aokamiI'm a bit confused, is this helping for translation layers or for developers to natively port their original game or both ?
Sure sounds good though!
It's tech used for building games, that supports Linux on top of many other platforms. There is a big list linked in the article.
scaine Sep 3, 2020
View PC info
  • Contributing Editor
  • Mega Supporter
I hate to be "that guy", but I'm not creating a github account just to sponsor Ethan. As much as I'm not a fan of Patreon, the fact that they're not owned by Microsoft is a huge plus for me. I'm sponsoring GOL, Icculus and Godot on Patreon, along with a couple of smaller indie devs, so it's a real shame I can't sponsor Ethan too, considering the huge impact he's had on my gaming (I owe him for Salt & Sanctuary, in particular!)

He did have a Patreon, a while back. I can't find evidence of it now, but I think he removed it during the 2017 Patreon controversy, where Patreon tried to move service fees to patrons, causing them to remove millions of $1 pledges. Not sure.

Nice that github is absorbing all the payment fees, I suppose, but it's still MS-owned, so not something I want to support. And at the end of the day, an extra 14% or so of zero is still zero. I'd love to show some support though, so it's a shame.

The whole thing brings to mind EGS vs Steam. Sure, EGS will take less of a cut, so it feels like a win, but contributors are already comfortable on Steam and even putting aside comfort/laziness, there's still the moral aspect of "do I want to have anything to do with EGS and their anti-consumer bullshit".
Purple Library Guy Sep 3, 2020
Quoting: Liam Dawe
Quoting: aokamiI'm a bit confused, is this helping for translation layers or for developers to natively port their original game or both ?
Sure sounds good though!
It's tech used for building games, that supports Linux on top of many other platforms. There is a big list linked in the article.
I guess sort of the way many game engines support multiple platforms, except it does somewhat different stuff than an engine.
Quoting: scaineI hate to be "that guy", but I'm not creating a github account just to sponsor Ethan. As much as I'm not a fan of Patreon, the fact that they're not owned by Microsoft is a huge plus for me. I'm sponsoring GOL, Icculus and Godot on Patreon, along with a couple of smaller indie devs, so it's a real shame I can't sponsor Ethan too, considering the huge impact he's had on my gaming (I owe him for Salt & Sanctuary, in particular!)

He did have a Patreon, a while back. I can't find evidence of it now, but I think he removed it during the 2017 Patreon controversy, where Patreon tried to move service fees to patrons, causing them to remove millions of $1 pledges. Not sure.

Nice that github is absorbing all the payment fees, I suppose, but it's still MS-owned, so not something I want to support. And at the end of the day, an extra 14% or so of zero is still zero. I'd love to show some support though, so it's a shame.

The whole thing brings to mind EGS vs Steam. Sure, EGS will take less of a cut, so it feels like a win, but contributors are already comfortable on Steam and even putting aside comfort/laziness, there's still the moral aspect of "do I want to have anything to do with EGS and their anti-consumer bullshit".

This! A hundred times. And no merch either to support as a one off :/

Please, Ethan if you're checking this thread: ppl want to support you more but the options are too limited. I don't have a GitHub account either and never will for the above mentioned reasons.
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.