Quoting: KristianDo you guys really see many games receiving Linux versions due to Vulkan, that wouldn't have otherwise?

One publisher that has made official comments on this is Stardock: They will not do OpenGL, they will do Vulkan, and only because of Vulkan Linux support for their games is under consideration, allthough make clear that they are not going to promise anything. (It's a shame, with their OS/2 roots, they should see the opportunity to publish on Linux as a golden chance to get rid of Microsoft, unfornately Stardock seems really Windows-minded.).

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Quoting: Kristian

Quoting: liamdaweMetal is likely one reason why Blizzard's new Overwatch game is Windows only. Older OpenGL and Metal likely doesn't have the features they want. Not having Vulkan could be a really bad decision for Apple.

It might also kill Vulkan. Without Apple Vulkan only brings older Windows versions, Linux and Android. Older Windows versions is a shrinking market and Android is irrelevant for graphically intensive, AAA games. I am afraid that without Apple, Vulkan adoption will not be able to drive Linux gaming.

Instead of "Hey we are using Vulkan any way for Macs, we should do a Linux version" we might see: "We want our game on Linux, maybe we should support Vulkan".

The latter attitude will lead to fewer Linux games than the former, a greater proportion of which will use OpenGL or a DirectX -> OpenGL or DirectX -> Vulkan translation layer.

How can Vulkan lead to greater Linux adoption in the game industry without an independent reason to use Vulkan?

Well, it is good API for starters, which applies some lessons learnt form DirectX12.

Second, it will take a few years before Windows 7 drops below MacOS market share. Not supporting Win7 looses you much more customers than you can gain on Mac/Linux.

Third, I think you are underestimating Android. Yes, many phones don't have the hardware to run graphically intense games. Do Macbooks with low-end Intel graphics have the hardware to run graphically intense games? Both Nvidia and Samsung have APUs that are relatively high-end and devices with those APUs will be able to benefit from Vulkan. Perhaps on phones, perhaps on bigger devices. The ability to rule PC and mobile with one codebase is a big benefit. FYI: The Talos Principle has an Android port.

Fourth: What you fear is not happening at all. Game engine developers are busy adding Vulkan, but not adding Metal. Big names in the games industry have pledged their support for Vulkan. Some, for example Croteam, have actively spoken out against supporting Metal. Conclusion: The decision against Mac has already been made by many developers.

But I agree would be best if Apple would jump into the Vulkan boat.

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Apple doesn't allow it.

Allowing it is just one aspect. Adding an entrily new graphics API without coöperation from the OS vendor is quite a technical endeavour. The people developing such a thing needs to have a deep understanding of the operating system in order to be successfull.

To the credit of Windows, it is quite well documented how things work internally (partially due to pressure from anti-trust authorities), which makes adding an API without coöperation from Microsoft doable. For OS X, even if Apple would say "no objection", the knowledge how to succeed might not be available outside Apple.

Another aspect is the economical view: Who is going to pay for such work? For Windows it is obvious, there is a clear business case for Valve, Google, Nvidia, AMD and others to support Vulkan on Windows. But for Apple, the investment is similar, the return on investment much lower. The named companies might want Apple to contribute to it, before doing all the work for free.

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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.

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Polaris is not just important in order to make the market more competitive, but also for the openness and even usability of our platform. AMD doing really great work on open source drivers lately, making systems with fully open source drivers viable, and even if you decide to use GPUPRO, only a small part of your driver will be closed source. This has benefits for freedom, but the fact that your GPU will work optimally right after you install your Linux distribution has great benefits to make Linux more accessible and easier for people.

I'm already a Radeon user and did never regret my puchase. Upgrading to Polaris will be a very easy decision.

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Quoting: CreakInteresting statistics!

I've got a question about it... I don't know how the peak of concurrent users number was taken, but if it was taken the same day the Steam statistics went out, we might have a problem here.

The Wayback Machine does not archive the Steam Statistics page daily. I took the closest archive date to the 20th of each month. So yes, it is possible that there is some noise due to a differing number of users during a week.

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SteamDB has the answers: The game with the most concurrent users, by far, on Steam is Dota 2, which is indeed free to play. So yes, free games can be a factor in ruïning statistics for which platform is most interresting. On the other hand, we have no reason to assume that Linux gamers do not play free games, in fact, we are used to free software.

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