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Is Vulkan going to be the saviour of Linux gaming? I have no idea, but the spec is being updated regularly to solve all sorts of issues. It's now on it's 34th revision since release.

You can find the docs on github (prettier version of the docs found here) if you're interested. It's really nice to not only see regular updates, but the fact that they actually pay attention to the publicly reported issues too.

Here's what has changed in the latest update:
QuoteChange log for November 18, 2016 Vulkan 1.0.34 spec update:

* Bump API patch number and header version number to 34 for this update.

Github Issues:

* Allow vkUpdateDescriptorSets overflow to skip empty bindings. Clarify
that unused bindings have a descriptorCount of zero. Improve some valid
usage for vkUpdateDescriptorSets (public issue 256).
* Require that slink:VkImageSubresourceRange always define a non-empty
range of the resource (public issue 303).
* Added valid usage for slink:VkPresentInfoKHR on the layout of presented
images (public issue 397).

Internal Issues:

* Add dependency in src/spec/Makefile so specversion.txt is regenerated
when needed (internal issue 462).
* Shorten the table of contents in the single-page ref page HTML output.
Still working on the PDF (internal issue 536).


You can find the specification changelog right here.

Vulkan is really being presented in such a different way to OpenGL, everything seems far more open which is awesome to see. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Vulkan
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pete910 Nov 18, 2016
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Just need some games now! {looks toward feral/aspry)
cRaZy-bisCuiT Nov 18, 2016
Quoting: pete910Just need some games now! {looks toward feral/aspry)
Please not only Windows ports - I'd like to see some well optimized native-cross-platform developed and optimized games as well. Of course a well optimized vulkan port will run better than OpenGL 4 - still it will take them a lot of time to get used to Vulkan. The first ports won't offer us such a great performance gain as many people expect - at least it's very unlikely.
TobiSGD Nov 18, 2016
It would be beneficial to Linux gaming, if developers actually would use it. While we are waiting for a feasibility study from Aspyr Civilization 6 on Windows got a DX12 renderer, yay. This pretty much says that Firaxis/2K just doesn't care.


Last edited by TobiSGD on 18 November 2016 at 4:40 pm UTC
Lordpkappa Nov 18, 2016
Savior of all pc ecosystem, not only Linux, DX12 in many games are worst than DX11, Battlefield 1 for example.
t3g Nov 18, 2016
Even if developers went Windows only, they are too comfortable with DirectX and their tools. They usually update an existing engine instead of creating a new one per game and that engine is based off of the tried and true DirectX 11. Some also think Vulkan is too new and/or obscure and even if they consider it, it will be years before any implementation.

Oh and the video card situation is interesting right now. In Vulkan and DirectX 12 games, the AMD cards beat out the Nvidia ones pretty easy at the same price range. Part of why I haven't upgraded from a GTX 970 right now is the hope of better support for DirectX 12/Vulkan in the Nvidia video cards after the 1000 series. There is no point at this moment since most games are still DirectX 11 and that is where the performance is right now in Nvidia's camp.


Last edited by t3g on 18 November 2016 at 5:20 pm UTC
Shmerl Nov 18, 2016
When are they going to add multi-GPU support?
cue58 Nov 18, 2016
My single most anticipated game for Vulkan support is the new Unreal Tournament.
Purple Library Guy Nov 18, 2016
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: cRaZy-bisCuiT
Quoting: pete910Just need some games now! {looks toward feral/aspry)
Please not only Windows ports - I'd like to see some well optimized native-cross-platform developed and optimized games as well. Of course a well optimized vulkan port will run better than OpenGL 4 - still it will take them a lot of time to get used to Vulkan. The first ports won't offer us such a great performance gain as many people expect - at least it's very unlikely.

Have to agree that something natively developed from the start is what we should be pushing for. Almost all the people who have so far touted the performance gains from Vulkan have had engines designed with DX11 in mind and tried previously to kludge OpenGL into it.
The only game I can think of that might be more representative of moving to Vulkan is Doom, which of course isn't available for GNU/Linux, but does come from a codebase more friendly towards OpenGL. Even then, they had access to special extensions made just for them, so it's not really something that can be considered a true comparison.

By this point, developers really should be using libraries that do away with 99.99% of platform specifics, and be cross-platform developing from the start. It makes sense even as a basic sanity check. Not that I think sanity prevails as much as it should, of course.

It's been mentioned hereabouts before, but the prospects would be better if Apple had gone with Vulkan instead of turning their noses up and rolling their own (Metal) as usual. At least Android is using Vulkan, which is huge although I'm not sure how much mobile development overlaps with the PC space.
Luke_Nukem Nov 18, 2016
Feral would make a killing if they managed to get a contract to natively port Doom..
TheRiddick Nov 19, 2016
I really wish Bethesda would give the keys to their games for porting to Linux. Many of them already run well under Wine but its just too clunky to run mods and related programs via Wine so a actual port would be nice for those games!

SkyrimSE and FO4 being the latest, but might require some actual work to port. I think Bethesda is openly ANTI Linux in a BIG way unfortunately... real sad...
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