lecture11_vulkan.asciidoc

Vulkan

Vulkan

• http://nickdesaulniers.github.io/RawWebGL/#/2

Vulkan - Question

• Vulkan is a modern replacement for OpenGL

• Many games will port to Vulkan

• Vulkan is (even) lower level than OpenGL

Vulkan - Industry Forged

Vulkan is a new generation graphics and compute API that provides high-efficiency, cross-platform access to modern GPUs used in a wide variety of devices from PCs and consoles to mobile phones and embedded platforms.

— https://www.khronos.org/vulkan/

DirectX 12 & Metal

• Conceptually, Vulkan is similar to both:

  • Microsoft’s DirectX 12

  • Apple’s Metal

• BUT, those only work on their platforms

• Vulkan is cross-platform, by design

  • Windows (xp, 7, 8, 10)

  • SteamOS

  • Linux

  • Tizen!!!

  • Android (7.0+)images

  • sort-of OS X and iOS

    • Vulkan support not announced by Apple

    • Third party support - MoltenVK

• Vulkan’s core in AMD’s Mantle

Wrt OpenGL

• OpenGL seems likely to continue to supported with hardware and hardware drivers for the near future

  • Khronos say they’ll keep developing OpenGL (and ES) in parallel with Vulkan

• Longer term, seems likely that a software OpenGL layer will be developed, that use Vulkan underneath

  • OpenGL driver development is extremely complex

  • Vulkan driver development is much easier

Benefits of Vulkan (performance)

• can create Command Buffers in parallel

  • leverage multicore CPUs more

  • good for CPU-limited render situations

• more predictable performance

  • you have more control

  • driver does less, so driver doesn’t do stuff you don’t expect or can’t control

Benefits of Vulkan (API)

• Vulkan is designed from the ground up to run on diverse platforms, ranging from mobiles and tablets, to gaming consoles and high-end desktops.

• Single API for all platforms

  • no more OpenGL vs OpenGL ES separation

• Still a C API

  • but enums are typed (unlike GL)

• Single, multi-API compute language (for shaders and kernels)

  • SPIR-V

Vulkan vs OpenGL

Vulkan 1.0 specification

• launched on February 16th, 2016

• https://www.khronos.org/registry/vulkan/

• Overview presentation - let’s dig in

• https://renderdoc.org/vulkan-in-30-minutes.html

Sample code

• McNopper has some good Vulkan examples

  • also, fyi, OpenGL and OpenGL ES ones also

    • OpenGL

    • OpenGL ES

The SDK provides the development and runtime components for building, running, and debugging Vulkan applications.

— LunarG Vulkan SDK
https://lunarg.com/

Question?

• Vulkan experience looks likely to be very valuable in industry

• I’m thinking about converting Advanced Graphics to use Vulkan

  • for 2017 or 2018 delivery

• What do you think?

Other Vulkan links

• Vulkan Programming Guide

  • https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Vulkan-Programming-Guide-Pre

  • https://twitter.com/sehurlburt/status/806950062408351744

• https://renderdoc.org/vulkan-in-30-minutes.html

• https://www.toptal.com/api-developers/a-brief-overview-of-vulkan-api

• https://libcinder.org/notes/vulkan

• https://github.com/SaschaWillems/Vulkan

• https://imgtec.com/blog/vulkan-one-api-for-all-platforms/