Samsung Embraces Vulkan As The Next-Gen Graphics API Is Poised To Reshape Mobile Gaming

[Lucian Armasu]

As Vulkan is about to land in Android N, Samsung seems to go out of its way to support the API, promote Vulkan gaming to consumers, and help developers port their games to the next-generation graphics API.

Samsung Embraces Vulkan As The Next-Gen Graphics API Is Poised To Reshape Mobile Gaming : Read more

 

[FTLAUDMAN]

"Super Evil Megacorp also believes that..."

Priceless.

 

[sesam]

Vulkan needs to become the new de-facto graphics API standard. PC gaming has way too long been tied into DirectX and Windows. For consumers and developers Vulkan is a clear winner.

For developers making their games multiplatform would be cheaper and easier. And consumers would not have to be tied to running the latest Windows version to play their games. Not only Linux users would benefit, but also those that would rather stay with an older version of Windows, yet get all the latest graphics features.

Apple is bound to adopt Vulkan if the API gains momentum, because it would just be good for them. Microsoft however has nothing to gain, and they will not give up their iron grip of PC gaming without a fight. DirectX has historically been one of Microsofts ways to practically force PC gamers to upgrade to a new version of Windows.

I would not be surprised if Microsoft will start handing out bags of money to developers, to make their games DX12 exclusive. Or release some of their previously Xbox exclusive games for DX12 only.

 

[vaughn2k]

AMD made the right move to donate Vulkan API to Khronos group... Now I hpe AMD will gain a foothold into more mobile space..

 

[Bloob]

Seeing how Android devices tend to lean towards multiple weak cores, Vulkan should be a great to avoid getting limited by the CPU.

 

[hitman400]

It is great to adopt Vulkan finally. Unfortunately, mobile gaming still suffers from "mini-game" syndrome. A game like Witcher 3 is complete; mobile game takes all the mini games from console games and makes a full game out of it. Jousting for example. Same thing goes for productive apps. An app like photoshop which does it all is fragmented by multiple devs. There's an app for unique lights added to pictures, one for lens flare, one for mirroring images. It's starting to make me sick. Hopefully with Vulkan, devs finally start to think serious about mobile gaming instead of making prettier endless runners, tower defense, and city building games. Oh, and better Need for Speed games on mobile, or should I say linear ice skating racing games of their open-world counterparts on the PC.

 

[captaincharisma]

yes cause a lot of people want to play a top games like witcher 3 on a 5 - 7" screen

 

[sh4dow83]

I find it funny though how this article seems to imply that Vulkan is easier to handle than OpenFL...

Not too long ago, I looked at code samples comparing how many lines it takes to render... I think a simple triangle. And holy crap was the Vulkan code bloated!

But... in the end, I guess there will be libraries and engines that handle all those standard management overhead tasks anyway...
And I also hope that it will become standard, remain open and that DirectX will finally die.

 

[photonboy]

sh4dow83,
Vulkan isn't bloated. If some of the code you saw actually was, then I'm sure it won't be around for long.

The entire point of Mantle was to start from scratch and make sure everything is efficient and easy to work with, though of course it takes YEARS and thousands of man hours to get the API, game engines and various plug-ins to work well together.

Wikipedia gives a good overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulkan_(API)

Khronos Group has a lot of info on Vulkan, OpenCL etc:
https://www.khronos.org/

 

[neblogai]

"Super Evil Megacorp also believes that..."

Priceless.

I bet Microsoft and Apple are angry someone else is using that name