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Vulkan support for Dota 2 to come next week

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Dota 2 is the first Valve game that will support the new Vulkan API and it could be as soon as next week.

Considering how early Valve had access to it, and even showed off a demo of it way before release of Vulkan I am still surprise Talos beat it to be the first public Vulkan game. Well, I say surprised, but "Valve Time" is a thing right?

It's exciting, as when Valve switched to Source 2 which had native OpenGL the performance was much better on Linux (in terms of smoothness and actual FPS figures) and Vulkan is supposed to improve it even more so.

Speaking on reddit, a Valve developer said this:
FletcherDunn, ValveWe're going to release vulkan support soon, probably sometime next week. That DLC checkbox is an error and shouldn't be visible yet. Sorry for the confusion.


You can also see on SteamDB that Valve has added Vulkan content for both Windows and Linux, no Mac of course as Apple decided to go with their own Metal API.

Like I did with Dota 2 when Valve switched to Source 2, I will let you know how it runs when the Vulkan version is available. I imagine it will be possible to switch between OpenGL and Vulkan to compare it easily, as I can't imagine them instantly turning off an older and more stable API right away (that's just asking for trouble). Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: MOBA, Steam, Vulkan
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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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fabry92 May 19, 2016
FINALLYY! Hypee


Last edited by fabry92 on 19 May 2016 at 9:08 am UTC
RTheren May 19, 2016
Will be Vulkan available for L4D2?
godlike May 19, 2016
I think DOTA 2 with Vulkan is a very important milestone. The most important aspect lies in the technical details of this achievement. I believe that Valve mentioned that DOTA 2 was (for the most part) GPU bound. The superiority of Vulkan in CPU bound scenarios is pretty much guaranteed so it will be extremely interesting to measure the performance in a GPU bound scenario. If Vulkan's performance is equal or better than GL then this will mark a big win for Vulkan.
dmantione May 19, 2016
If is an important milestone anyway, because Dota2 is the game on Steam that by far has the most players. If those players start using Vulkan, and if it is faster than OpenGL/DirectX, there is no reason for them not to, then Vulkan is suddenly an API that must work.

I.e. if AMD or Nvidia or Intel release a driver with broken Vulkan support, currently the subsets of players of the Talos Principle will notice and complain. I don't want to downplay the Talos Principle, it an such unique masterpiece of art that it is a must play for every gamer and even non-gamer, but fact of the matter is that its popularity by far isn't enough for Vulkan to become the standard API.

A game like Dota2 is a big step in the right direction, and so will Doom be. Even if there are no signs that Doom will come to Linux, it is still helping us to push Vulkan and make the decision easier for other game developers to use Vulkan.
burnall May 19, 2016
Vulkan as a graphics API has already shown some impressive results in Doom 4 for Nvidia gtx 1080 presentation video. I'm more interested how it will perform on Linux with open source drivers.
bubexel May 19, 2016
I hope we can see real fair benchmarks, between windows and linux, with vulkan :D
linux_gamer May 19, 2016
Very good news for Linux gaming! But there is no confirmation that Vulkan will be present next week on both systems, maybe its just Windows (as Source 2 was ahead also) or Linux only (far less likely).

Quoting: liamdaweno Mac of course as Apple decided to go with their own Metal API.
And Microsoft is very happy about Vulkan, so they officially support it?


Last edited by linux_gamer on 19 May 2016 at 10:11 am UTC
bubexel May 19, 2016
Quoting: linuxgamerVery good news for Linux gaming! But there is no confirmation that Vulkan will be present next week on both systems, maybe its just Windows (as Source 2 was ahead also) or Linux only (far less likely).

Quoting: liamdaweno Mac of course as Apple decided to go with their own Metal API.
And Microsoft is very happy about Vulkan, so they officially support it?

Same as they don't support opengl. What i can't understand is why nvidia, intel and amd don't add vulkan on their drivers for mac?


Last edited by bubexel on 19 May 2016 at 10:18 am UTC
crazyg4merz May 19, 2016
My most played game ever. :D
Stebs May 19, 2016
Quoting: bubexelSame as they don't support opengl. What i can't understand is why nvidia, intel and amd don't add vulkan on their drivers for mac?
Apple doesn't allow it.
On OS X, Apple controls the drivers, those are written only "with the help of" Nvidia, Intel etc., and not simply by Nvidia, Intel...
Specifics about this seem to be secret.
That is probably also why OS X is still at OpenGL 4.1 (4.0 actually).
And Metal doesn't even support features like Geometry shaders or Tesselation shaders, it's designed for mobile usage...
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