There's some (fairly dry) technical info on Vulkan from a couple of months ago from this stream. The relevant stuff begins at 57 mins. Valve talks about Vulkan as the only 'sensible' choice at 1:40.
The problem is that open APIs and standards are somewhat of a lie. There are always corporations pushing an agenda behind them, always. This has happened with web standards, openGL (which has been a major factor for it historically lagging behind), Android, and most any other technology.
Companies use this "open platform" as a means to weaken their competition and gain an advantage and foothold to displace them. It's rarely done in the best interest of the user or consumer and almost always in the best interest in the revenue of the corporation(s) pushing the agenda. I just don't believe this will be any better for the consumer than what we have and could be like how the internet and browsers are now, near complete rubbish.
This is a pretty blanket statement. Can you give specific examples to back this up?
OpenGL was 'behind' because Microsoft had a complete monopoly in PC gaming in the 90s and chose to push its own proprietary platform. To say that open standards have agendas behind them, when proprietary APIs are purely about corporate profit, to me is somewhat peculiar.
Actually, in the late 1990's OpenGL was #2, DirectX was #3 and 3DFX Glide was #1. Then in the early 2000's OpenGL became #1.
You see Microsoft sat on the OpenGL ARB and played a part in delaying and watering down OpenGL after that so that they could steal ideas and surpass OpenGL with DirectX9. TBH the only reason DirectX ever surpassed OpenGL was because DirectX was installed by default and was selected by default in most games in the 2000's. Users didn't know what OpenGL was or bothered to try using it. Most games didn't even have the option anymore because you had to drop OpenGL to get the "Made For Windows" certification.
OpenGL was never really behind since hardware venders could release new features to OpenGL first without much overhead. To get a new feature into DirectX requires 1-2 years and Microsoft's approval.
Just because Microsoft pushes something exclusive to Windows doesn't mean it will dominate the market. If Microsoft made a new programming language that combined the performance of Perl with the convenience of C, people would generally ignore it except to laugh at it. Microsoft has made programming languages, but that doesn't mean that nothing else works well on Windows. And it doesn't stop people from running C++, Java, Python, and various other languages not created by Microsoft on Windows.
Performance of Perl....convenience of C? uh......
Microsoft does push exclusive languages. Basically, in order for universities to get free stuff and avoid spending millions Microsoft forces them to teach the Microsoft langauges. When students graduate, they only know those languages. This how how we have C# and VB. Both are really crummy languages and proprietary and expensive to buy tools for (Visual Studio Ultimate costs $15,000, no joke!).
Actually, in the late 1990's OpenGL was #2, DirectX was #3 and 3DFX Glide was #1. Then in the early 2000's OpenGL became #1.
You see Microsoft sat on the OpenGL ARB and played a part in delaying and watering down OpenGL after that so that they could steal ideas and surpass OpenGL with DirectX9. TBH the only reason DirectX ever surpassed OpenGL was because DirectX was installed by default and was selected by default in most games in the 2000's. Users didn't know what OpenGL was or bothered to try using it. Most games didn't even have the option anymore because you had to drop OpenGL to get the "Made For Windows" certification.
OpenGL was never really behind since hardware venders could release new features to OpenGL first without much overhead. To get a new feature into DirectX requires 1-2 years and Microsoft's approval.
I was talking about Microsoft's aggressive monopoly in the 90s going forward. It wasn't until the mid 90s that the computer game market was completely swallowed by DOS/Windows. Certainly in the late 90s I can remember games regularly offering OpenGL options, which as you say disappeared during the 2000s. Of course OpenGL has returned a little in the last few years because of the growth of indie games.
As for 'behind', I was referring to the words of the person I quoted. I think that most people feel OpenGL is behind because it's rarely used in AAA games, except those that are being ported to Linux (and OS X -- though if I remember rightly, OS X's OpenGL implementation is or was out of date).
Actually, in the late 1990's OpenGL was #2, DirectX was #3 and 3DFX Glide was #1. Then in the early 2000's OpenGL became #1.
You see Microsoft sat on the OpenGL ARB and played a part in delaying and watering down OpenGL after that so that they could steal ideas and surpass OpenGL with DirectX9. TBH the only reason DirectX ever surpassed OpenGL was because DirectX was installed by default and was selected by default in most games in the 2000's. Users didn't know what OpenGL was or bothered to try using it. Most games didn't even have the option anymore because you had to drop OpenGL to get the "Made For Windows" certification.
OpenGL was never really behind since hardware venders could release new features to OpenGL first without much overhead. To get a new feature into DirectX requires 1-2 years and Microsoft's approval.
I was talking about Microsoft's aggressive monopoly in the 90s going forward. It wasn't until the mid 90s that the computer game market was completely swallowed by DOS/Windows. Certainly in the late 90s I can remember games regularly offering OpenGL options, which as you say disappeared during the 2000s. Of course OpenGL has returned a little in the last few years because of the growth of indie games.
As for 'behind', I was referring to the words of the person I quoted. I think that most people feel OpenGL is behind because it's rarely used in AAA games, except those that are being ported to Linux (and OS X -- though if I remember rightly, OS X's OpenGL implementation is or was out of date).
OpenGL on Mac is usually one version behind. Mac has OpenGL 3.3 instead of 4.4. Doesn't matter that much though since most games don't use the newest features of OpenGL or DirectX.
OpenGL on Mac is usually one version behind. Mac has OpenGL 3.3 instead of 4.4. Doesn't matter that much though since most games don't use the newest features of OpenGL or DirectX.
Looking at some of the ports to Linux, some require OpenGL 4.3 for Linux (e.g. Shadows of Mordor, Alien Isolation), with the OS X ports fudged using OpenCL.
*cough* renderer is not the only reason devs prefer to code for Windows *cough*
This time around, Dx12 is more feature rich, above all else - it is here. And for the time being, it works faster. As far as I am aware, Vulkan is only accessible by big time studios and well-known testers, if at all.
I hope the fastest, most powerful, and easiest to deliver a good player experience wins. Right now the development environment used in conjunction with DirectX 12 is very mature and stable. Its easier to develop a windows based game using DirectX12 and distribute it. The thing I would worry about with Vulkan is hardware support. As we know AMD is backing the project, and it includes a continuation of mantle. It also scales to more cores better. This is bad news for nVidia and Intel. The API no longer handicaps AMD based hardware which will show a sizable performance advantage.
As for Linux fragmentation issues, I don't think that will be a problem. Most linux users tend to be technically savvy. I would also imagine that the individual distros would put up requirements and if they support certain features. You obviously are not going to be paying games off a dedicated linux server.
To answer your first paragraph, yes, Dx12 will do the exact same thing. It will also allow you to use GPUs from different vendors, so for example you could have nVidia AND AMD both working on a single application. How's that for coolness. Finally that integrated intel gpu we get anyway with our i-CPUs will be able to do some work.
*cough* renderer is not the only reason devs prefer to code for Windows *cough*
This time around, Dx12 is more feature rich, above all else - it is here. And for the time being, it works faster. As far as I am aware, Vulkan is only accessible by big time studios and well-known testers, if at all.
And how many DX12 games are out right now, exactly? DX12 works faster than what? Doing what? With what? As for Vulkan being unavailable, the spec is out within a month or so, and Valve has Dota 2 running fine on it on AMD, nvidia and Intel hardware. Public drivers will be out after the spec is released.
What's more, despite this consistent uninformed link of Vulkan to Linux, Vulkan will run fine, with all those wonderful advantages that DX12 offers over DX11, on Windows Vista, 7 and 8.
*cough* renderer is not the only reason devs prefer to code for Windows *cough*
This time around, Dx12 is more feature rich, above all else - it is here. And for the time being, it works faster. As far as I am aware, Vulkan is only accessible by big time studios and well-known testers, if at all.
And how many DX12 games are out right now, exactly? DX12 works faster than what? Doing what? With what? As for Vulkan being unavailable, the spec is out within a month or so, and Valve has Dota 2 running fine on it on AMD, nvidia and Intel hardware. Public drivers will be out after the spec is released.
What's more, despite this consistent uninformed link of Vulkan to Linux, Vulkan will run fine, with all those wonderful advantages that DX12 offers over DX11, on Windows Vista, 7 and 8.
Do you really believe that heavily abstracted API would work as fast as an API that is made by the OS vendor itself? I actually expect Vulkan to be slower on Windows machines and faster on open source OSes like BSD and linux. And if I'm right, that'd be the death of Vulkan on the Windows PC. Unless you are rolling WindowsXP still. But that's quite pathetic these days. So a non-factor.
*cough* renderer is not the only reason devs prefer to code for Windows *cough*
This time around, Dx12 is more feature rich, above all else - it is here. And for the time being, it works faster. As far as I am aware, Vulkan is only accessible by big time studios and well-known testers, if at all.
And how many DX12 games are out right now, exactly? DX12 works faster than what? Doing what? With what? As for Vulkan being unavailable, the spec is out within a month or so, and Valve has Dota 2 running fine on it on AMD, nvidia and Intel hardware. Public drivers will be out after the spec is released.
What's more, despite this consistent uninformed link of Vulkan to Linux, Vulkan will run fine, with all those wonderful advantages that DX12 offers over DX11, on Windows Vista, 7 and 8.
Do you really believe that heavily abstracted API would work as fast as an API that is made by the OS vendor itself? I actually expect Vulkan to be slower on Windows machines and faster on open source OSes like BSD and linux. And if I'm right, that'd be the death of Vulkan on the Windows PC. Unless you are rolling WindowsXP still. But that's quite pathetic these days. So a non-factor.
Clearly Unreal Engine and CryEngine have Dx12 support. I'm sure Frostbite has it too but since its exclusive to EA we'll have to wait for titles.
Vulkan and DX12 are comparable APIs. There's absolutely no reason Vulkan should run faster on Linux than it does on Windows. Both are using native hardware graphics drivers and both are running code on the GPU. The tech demos nvidia and others have showed off have shown exceptional increases in performance on Windows compared to OpenGL, just as DX12 demos can show the same vs DX11.
Many developers that intend to launch games on SteamOS/Linux as well as Windows are likely to use Vulkan because it means they can use the same API.
*cough* renderer is not the only reason devs prefer to code for Windows *cough*
This time around, Dx12 is more feature rich, above all else - it is here. And for the time being, it works faster. As far as I am aware, Vulkan is only accessible by big time studios and well-known testers, if at all.
And how many DX12 games are out right now, exactly? DX12 works faster than what? Doing what? With what? As for Vulkan being unavailable, the spec is out within a month or so, and Valve has Dota 2 running fine on it on AMD, nvidia and Intel hardware. Public drivers will be out after the spec is released.
What's more, despite this consistent uninformed link of Vulkan to Linux, Vulkan will run fine, with all those wonderful advantages that DX12 offers over DX11, on Windows Vista, 7 and 8.
Do you really believe that heavily abstracted API would work as fast as an API that is made by the OS vendor itself? I actually expect Vulkan to be slower on Windows machines and faster on open source OSes like BSD and linux. And if I'm right, that'd be the death of Vulkan on the Windows PC. Unless you are rolling WindowsXP still. But that's quite pathetic these days. So a non-factor.
Clearly Unreal Engine and CryEngine have Dx12 support. I'm sure Frostbite has it too but since its exclusive to EA we'll have to wait for titles.
Vulkan and DX12 are comparable APIs. There's absolutely no reason Vulkan should run faster on Linux than it does on Windows. Both are using native hardware graphics drivers and both are running code on the GPU. The tech demos nvidia and others have showed off have shown exceptional increases in performance on Windows compared to OpenGL, just as DX12 demos can show the same vs DX11.
Many developers that intend to launch games on SteamOS/Linux as well as Windows are likely to use Vulkan because it means they can use the same API.
Through the years i've grown to be skeptical about tech demos from AMD/nVidia. They never turn to be as cool in real as on tech demos. I expect compatibility issues as well. Not everyone is running latest and greatest in hardware.
Also unless Sony and Microsoft are onboard with Vulkan, I don't see it being anything else than being tossed aside as a hobby to nerdy programmers.
The reason I'm saying this is because there are almost no exclusive PC studios (Valve being one that I recall, but others ... not so much) and most big-time studios really do focus hard on consoles for plethora of reasons. One of which being that every console is running at the same clocks and a developer knows how to use those CPU cycles.You don't get that on the PC. Not by a longshot. How many people would drop their DirectX/OpenGL convenience because some fanboy said Vulkan is the next best thing sicne sliced bread?
Through the years i've grown to be skeptical about tech demos from AMD/nVidia. They never turn to be as cool in real as on tech demos. I expect compatibility issues as well. Not everyone is running latest and greatest in hardware.
Also unless Sony and Microsoft are onboard with Vulkan, I don't see it being anything else than being tossed aside as a hobby to nerdy programmers.
The reason I'm saying this is because there are almost no exclusive PC studios (Valve being one that I recall, but others ... not so much) and most big-time studios really do focus hard on consoles for plethora of reasons. One of which being that every console is running at the same clocks and a developer knows how to use those CPU cycles.You don't get that on the PC. Not by a longshot. How many people would drop their DirectX/OpenGL convenience because some fanboy said Vulkan is the next best thing sicne sliced bread?
The demos are there really just for that purpose, not much else. However, Valve has shown Dota 2 running in Vulkan, so we know Source 2 is already done, and CryEngine, Unreal and Unity will all have Vulkan support in the future. Since it's all under NDA until the spec comes out in a week or two there's not much more known publicly.
Microsoft of course isn't interested in Vulkan as it competes directly with DX12, it's an open standard, and runs on other platforms. That doesn't necessarily mean anything though. But don't expect Half Life 3, when it finally comes out, to have any DirectX support at all.
Valve has committed pretty much everything to Vulkan (a company you can hardly dismiss in PC gaming), and Google is heavily invested too, since it will be the primary rendering platform for Android. Intel, NVIDIA and AMD are fully on board, along with mobile vendors like ARM.
I doubt you will ever see Vulkan become mainstream with the main reason being console to pc portability. Right now you can move from Xbox One to PC with no code changes thinks to DirectX 12 and I am sure PS4 will get on board there shortly also. Once you can easily port between console and pc and vica versa with nothing more then a simple recompile, it will rule out using other api's.
Cause let's all be honest at the end of the day Mac and Linux is less then console users. All the major dev's, hardware vendors, ect are targeting the places where gamers are the most PC Windows and Consoles. When you have a single api that covers both that does not extend the developers job any to hit both places. Well that is going to be what people develop for.
I hope to see Vulkan win out. Play the games you want on whatever OS you want, rather than being tied to Windows. I'm planning on porting my own game from OpenGL to Vulkan after bindings for it are available in Java.
The era of DirectX driving graphics forward and OpenGL coming along and adding the same features years later seems to have ended several years ago. But inertia is a powerful thing in software development, and I expect DirectX to be most common for PCs for some years to come.
Sadly I agree with you. What we hope for and what will probably happen are two different things of course. As you said, DirectX will likely be the more common thing for the foreseeable future.
The poll question asked which do you hope will win out, not which do you expect will win out.
As for "which will you use", I expect that a lot of gamers will use both in at least one game.
You're right, i see it now down at the very bottom.
To answer the poll then, i don't really hope either will win out. If Vulkan wins out over DX12 it puts us in a similar position as we are now. What i HOPE would happen is that its more like the early days where there were multiple APIs (Glide, D3D, OpenGL, etc)
I'd rather see proprietary APIs go away and just have an industry standard API that runs well on everything. I hate seeing games that have major features that only run on Nvidia but not AMD or vice versa. I'd much rather it be, pick the OS you want, pick the hardware you want, play whatever games you want, and it all just works.
I am not trying to kill off Windows. Vulkan runs on Windows, too, just like OpenGL does. I'd be much less keen on both of them if they didn't run on Windows.
If Valve would have gone the route of making a cross platform api on par with DX instead of the stupid SteamOS no one wanted, I bet it would become very popular quickly.
I would not say no one want it right now for many is not a need, like trying get people off of xp or windows7 to windows 10 they don't see the point to it. As game still being made and coded still in DX9/DX11. But unlike DX12 can't run on the other windows but with maybe Vulkan may end up running on older OS when people don't want to upgrade but they can end up using the api new api.
But right now linux as a main plaform not so great overtime it may end up that way if drivers get push out, but the end will come down to the drivers and the api support with many major company backing it up.
But some people are right Vulkan will never beat windows but if makes a good push then it's good for everyone even windows user then company like microsoft don't end up sitting on there hands do anything silly that people don't agree with.
Can't forget if was not for AMD Mantle then Dx12 and Vulkan would not happen.
Personally i hope Vulkan becomes a viable and used alternative to Dx12 or at least supported in conjunction with Dx12, because at the moment, only Win10 has Dx12, it would mean that you could have the same functionality on previous Win iterations as you do in Win 10, at least when it comes to games, for those that would prefer to remain on either Win 7 or 8, it may well be a good reason to stay with those platforms, rather than be forced to switch to a platform you don't particularly like, for whatever reason.
I doubt you will ever see Vulkan become mainstream with the main reason being console to pc portability. Right now you can move from Xbox One to PC with no code changes thinks to DirectX 12 and I am sure PS4 will get on board there shortly also. Once you can easily port between console and pc and vica versa with nothing more then a simple recompile, it will rule out using other api's.
Cause let's all be honest at the end of the day Mac and Linux is less then console users. All the major dev's, hardware vendors, ect are targeting the places where gamers are the most PC Windows and Consoles. When you have a single api that covers both that does not extend the developers job any to hit both places. Well that is going to be what people develop for.
Nintendo joins Khronos in September to soon to say that Sony will, But how much microsoft locked down DX12 other sony install windows on PS4 is unlikely going happen that microsoft going make a DX12 just for sony own OS.
Just because Microsoft pushes something exclusive to Windows doesn't mean it will dominate the market. If Microsoft made a new programming language that combined the performance of Perl with the convenience of C, people would generally ignore it except to laugh at it. Microsoft has made programming languages, but that doesn't mean that nothing else works well on Windows. And it doesn't stop people from running C++, Java, Python, and various other languages not created by Microsoft on Windows.
Performance of Perl....convenience of C? uh......
Microsoft does push exclusive languages. Basically, in order for universities to get free stuff and avoid spending millions Microsoft forces them to teach the Microsoft langauges. When students graduate, they only know those languages. This how how we have C# and VB. Both are really crummy languages and proprietary and expensive to buy tools for (Visual Studio Ultimate costs $15,000, no joke!).
My point is that if Microsoft made a truly awful programming language and made it exclusive to Windows, people wouldn't jump to use it because they saw Windows-exclusivity as making it good.
I'm not a computer science person. But of the two introductory courses I took, one was C++ and the other was Java. Both of those have plenty of free tools available, too.
*cough* renderer is not the only reason devs prefer to code for Windows *cough*
This time around, Dx12 is more feature rich, above all else - it is here. And for the time being, it works faster. As far as I am aware, Vulkan is only accessible by big time studios and well-known testers, if at all.
And how many DX12 games are out right now, exactly? DX12 works faster than what? Doing what? With what? As for Vulkan being unavailable, the spec is out within a month or so, and Valve has Dota 2 running fine on it on AMD, nvidia and Intel hardware. Public drivers will be out after the spec is released.
What's more, despite this consistent uninformed link of Vulkan to Linux, Vulkan will run fine, with all those wonderful advantages that DX12 offers over DX11, on Windows Vista, 7 and 8.
Do you really believe that heavily abstracted API would work as fast as an API that is made by the OS vendor itself? I actually expect Vulkan to be slower on Windows machines and faster on open source OSes like BSD and linux. And if I'm right, that'd be the death of Vulkan on the Windows PC. Unless you are rolling WindowsXP still. But that's quite pathetic these days. So a non-factor.
Clearly Unreal Engine and CryEngine have Dx12 support. I'm sure Frostbite has it too but since its exclusive to EA we'll have to wait for titles.
It's plausible that DirectX 12 could have less host code overhead than Vulkan. But they're supposed to both not have very much. Once you get to the shaders that actually run on the GPU, neither AMD nor Nvidia nor Intel GPUs run Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, or any other such desktop operating systems. If DirectX 12 has a significant advantage there, it will mean that the graphics vendors screwed up.
Just because Microsoft pushes something exclusive to Windows doesn't mean it will dominate the market. If Microsoft made a new programming language that combined the performance of Perl with the convenience of C, people would generally ignore it except to laugh at it. Microsoft has made programming languages, but that doesn't mean that nothing else works well on Windows. And it doesn't stop people from running C++, Java, Python, and various other languages not created by Microsoft on Windows.
Performance of Perl....convenience of C? uh......
Microsoft does push exclusive languages. Basically, in order for universities to get free stuff and avoid spending millions Microsoft forces them to teach the Microsoft langauges. When students graduate, they only know those languages. This how how we have C# and VB. Both are really crummy languages and proprietary and expensive to buy tools for (Visual Studio Ultimate costs $15,000, no joke!).
My point is that if Microsoft made a truly awful programming language and made it exclusive to Windows, people wouldn't jump to use it because they saw Windows-exclusivity as making it good.
I'm not a computer science person. But of the two introductory courses I took, one was C++ and the other was Java. Both of those have plenty of free tools available, too.
I doubt you will ever see Vulkan become
mainstream with the main reason being console to pc portability. Right
now you can move from Xbox One to PC with no code changes thinks to
DirectX 12 and I am sure PS4 will get on board there shortly also. Once
you can easily port between console and pc and vica versa with nothing
more then a simple recompile, it will rule out using other api's.
Cause
let's all be honest at the end of the day Mac and Linux is less then
console users. All the major dev's, hardware vendors, ect are targeting
the places where gamers are the most PC Windows and Consoles. When you
have a single api that covers both that does not extend the developers
job any to hit both places. Well that is going to be what people develop
for.
This is not true. XBOX one does not run DX12, it runs DX11. PS4 will never run DX12. They wouldn't need to since they have their own API called GCM which has been more low level than both DX12 and Vulkan since PS3. To port from XBOX one DX11 to Windows DX12 would require a major code rewrite.
However, when PS4 and Nintendo get Vullkan preinstalled and Nvidia and AMD roll out their Vulkan drivers you would be a fool to use DX12. You could just use Vulkan and use the same code on PS4, Nintendo, Windows, Linux.
*cough* renderer is not the only reason devs prefer to code for Windows *cough*
This time around, Dx12 is more feature rich, above all else - it is here. And for the time being, it works faster. As far as I am aware, Vulkan is only accessible by big time studios and well-known testers, if at all.
No dev is going to struggle through the fragmentation of linux so that you could be happy with your rendering API.
You have it wrong bro. Vulkan is available to everyone after next month. DX12 is not more feature rich than Vulkan. They do about the same thing. In fact being feature rich was what the devs of both DX12 and Vulkan are trying to avoid. Features add CPU overhead.
Fragmentation isn't an issue if you don't require over 9000 libraries installed to run your binaries! Most games will only require pthreads, X11.org, and GL (or Vulkan) which is on all desktop distros. Most of the performance hits were because they were testing OpenGL ports to DX games on windows. For example, I used to play the windows WoW client on linux and I actually had higher framerates and less lag because my linux install didn't hog 2-4GB of ram like Windows does.
Just to reiterate, Vulkan vs DX12 has nothing to do with Windows vs Linux. The only reason the OS comes into it is because DX12 will only run on Windows 10, as Microsoft won't allow it to run anywhere else. Vulkan is an open standard and so has no such restrictions.
Just because Microsoft pushes something exclusive to Windows doesn't mean it will dominate the market. If Microsoft made a new programming language that combined the performance of Perl with the convenience of C, people would generally ignore it except to laugh at it. Microsoft has made programming languages, but that doesn't mean that nothing else works well on Windows. And it doesn't stop people from running C++, Java, Python, and various other languages not created by Microsoft on Windows.
Performance of Perl....convenience of C? uh......
Microsoft does push exclusive languages. Basically, in order for universities to get free stuff and avoid spending millions Microsoft forces them to teach the Microsoft langauges. When students graduate, they only know those languages. This how how we have C# and VB. Both are really crummy languages and proprietary and expensive to buy tools for (Visual Studio Ultimate costs $15,000, no joke!).
This is rumor control. Here are the facts:
C# is an open standard, unlike Java, everyone are free to make an implementation of the language on any platform. CLR (the .NET runtime environment) is an open standard, anyone can implement it.
As point in fact, this has been done by the Mono Project, allowing C# to be used on non windows platforms. Next generation of the CLR by Microsoft is being build for Linux as well.
Visual Studio is not needed to build nor run C# applications. Tool stack for that is free to use, also for commercial applications. VS is an IDE choice, nothing more, nothing less.
Your oppnion that C# is a crummy language is just that: An oppinion.
C# is an open standard, unlike Java, everyone are free to make an implementation of the language on any platform. CLR (the .NET runtime environment) is an open standard, anyone can implement it.
As point in fact, this has been done by the Mono Project, allowing C# to be used on non windows platforms. Next generation of the CLR by Microsoft is being build for Linux as well.
Visual Studio is not needed to build nor run C# applications. Tool stack for that is free to use, also for commercial applications. VS is an IDE choice, nothing more, nothing less.
Your oppnion that C# is a crummy language is just that: An oppinion.
Somewhat off topic, but C# is only an open standard in version 2 of the language. Editions since then are not. It cannot sensibly be compared to languages such as C and C++, which are entirely standardised and fully open.
Dx12 - no major game studio is even looking at Vulcan at this point in any serious capacity.
How do you know?
He knows because it's been like that for 20 years.
Welcome to the world of PC.
OpenGL works for extremely basic things, it's nice for physics simulation that need to be platform independent.
But other than that, OpenGL is a bloated mess, anyone who has used it knows it. There are still bugs in OpenGL that date back from 1.2
Uniform Buffer and drawcalls have been bugged for like 10 years. No one even gives a damn, Apple is like 2 years behind on every OpenGL release because they don't want to deal with the bugs.
Why do you think no one develops games for Apple. The OpenGL API is a freaking mess. Hell, Apple has been developing their own OpenGL drivers for years now, they got tired of waiting on Nvidia and AMD who don't even care about OpenGL drivers, like, at all. The driver in your MAC thingy, is from Apple.
Comments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quNsdYfWXfM
Bit of summary information:
Then in the early 2000's OpenGL became #1.
You see Microsoft sat on the OpenGL ARB and played a part in delaying and watering down OpenGL after that so that they could steal ideas and surpass OpenGL with DirectX9.
TBH the only reason DirectX ever surpassed OpenGL was because DirectX was installed by default and was selected by default in most games in the 2000's. Users didn't know what OpenGL was or bothered to try using it. Most games didn't even have the option anymore because you had to drop OpenGL to get the "Made For Windows" certification.
OpenGL was never really behind since hardware venders could release new features to OpenGL first without much overhead. To get a new feature into DirectX requires 1-2 years and Microsoft's approval.
Microsoft does push exclusive languages. Basically, in order for universities to get free stuff and avoid spending millions Microsoft forces them to teach the Microsoft langauges. When students graduate, they only know those languages.
This how how we have C# and VB. Both are really crummy languages and proprietary and expensive to buy tools for (Visual Studio Ultimate costs $15,000, no joke!).
As for 'behind', I was referring to the words of the person I quoted. I think that most people feel OpenGL is behind because it's rarely used in AAA games, except those that are being ported to Linux (and OS X -- though if I remember rightly, OS X's OpenGL implementation is or was out of date).
Mac has OpenGL 3.3 instead of 4.4.
Doesn't matter that much though since most games don't use the newest features of OpenGL or DirectX.
This time around, Dx12 is more feature rich, above all else - it is here. And for the time being, it works faster. As far as I am aware, Vulkan is only accessible by big time studios and well-known testers, if at all.
It's evident that linux is less performant than Windows as of right now http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/11/ars-benchmarks-show-significant-performance-hit-for-steamos-gaming/
No dev is going to struggle through the fragmentation of linux so that you could be happy with your rendering API.
What's more, despite this consistent uninformed link of Vulkan to Linux, Vulkan will run fine, with all those wonderful advantages that DX12 offers over DX11, on Windows Vista, 7 and 8.
P.S: Sorry, here's a link with Dx12 capable games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_DirectX_12_support
Clearly Unreal Engine and CryEngine have Dx12 support. I'm sure Frostbite has it too but since its exclusive to EA we'll have to wait for titles.
Many developers that intend to launch games on SteamOS/Linux as well as Windows are likely to use Vulkan because it means they can use the same API.
Also unless Sony and Microsoft are onboard with Vulkan, I don't see it being anything else than being tossed aside as a hobby to nerdy programmers.
The reason I'm saying this is because there are almost no exclusive PC studios (Valve being one that I recall, but others ... not so much) and most big-time studios really do focus hard on consoles for plethora of reasons. One of which being that every console is running at the same clocks and a developer knows how to use those CPU cycles.You don't get that on the PC. Not by a longshot. How many people would drop their DirectX/OpenGL convenience because some fanboy said Vulkan is the next best thing sicne sliced bread?
Microsoft of course isn't interested in Vulkan as it competes directly with DX12, it's an open standard, and runs on other platforms. That doesn't necessarily mean anything though. But don't expect Half Life 3, when it finally comes out, to have any DirectX support at all.
Valve has committed pretty much everything to Vulkan (a company you can hardly dismiss in PC gaming), and Google is heavily invested too, since it will be the primary rendering platform for Android. Intel, NVIDIA and AMD are fully on board, along with mobile vendors like ARM.
Cause let's all be honest at the end of the day Mac and Linux is less then console users. All the major dev's, hardware vendors, ect are targeting the places where gamers are the most PC Windows and Consoles. When you have a single api that covers both that does not extend the developers job any to hit both places. Well that is going to be what people develop for.
But right now linux as a main plaform not so great overtime it may end up that way if drivers get push out, but the end will come down to the drivers and the api support with many major company backing it up.
But some people are right Vulkan will never beat windows but if makes a good push then it's good for everyone even windows user then company like microsoft don't end up sitting on there hands do anything silly that people don't agree with.
Can't forget if was not for AMD Mantle then Dx12 and Vulkan would not happen.
I'm not a computer science person. But of the two introductory courses I took, one was C++ and the other was Java. Both of those have plenty of free tools available, too.
It's plausible that DirectX 12 could have less host code overhead than Vulkan. But they're supposed to both not have very much. Once you get to the shaders that actually run on the GPU, neither AMD nor Nvidia nor Intel GPUs run Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, or any other such desktop operating systems. If DirectX 12 has a significant advantage there, it will mean that the graphics vendors screwed up.
This is not true. XBOX one does not run DX12, it runs DX11.
PS4 will never run DX12. They wouldn't need to since they have their own API called GCM which has been more low level than both DX12 and Vulkan since PS3.
To port from XBOX one DX11 to Windows DX12 would require a major code rewrite.
However, when PS4 and Nintendo get Vullkan preinstalled and Nvidia and AMD roll out their Vulkan drivers you would be a fool to use DX12. You could just use Vulkan and use the same code on PS4, Nintendo, Windows, Linux.
DX12 is not more feature rich than Vulkan. They do about the same thing.
In fact being feature rich was what the devs of both DX12 and Vulkan are trying to avoid. Features add CPU overhead.
Fragmentation isn't an issue if you don't require over 9000 libraries installed to run your binaries!
Most games will only require pthreads, X11.org, and GL (or Vulkan) which is on all desktop distros.
Most of the performance hits were because they were testing OpenGL ports to DX games on windows. For example, I used to play the windows WoW client on linux and I actually had higher framerates and less lag because my linux install didn't hog 2-4GB of ram like Windows does.
C# is an open standard, unlike Java, everyone are free to make an implementation of the language on any platform.
CLR (the .NET runtime environment) is an open standard, anyone can implement it.
As point in fact, this has been done by the Mono Project, allowing C# to be used on non windows platforms.
Next generation of the CLR by Microsoft is being build for Linux as well.
Visual Studio is not needed to build nor run C# applications. Tool stack for that is free to use, also for commercial applications. VS is an IDE choice, nothing more, nothing less.
Your oppnion that C# is a crummy language is just that: An oppinion.
Welcome to the world of PC.
OpenGL works for extremely basic things, it's nice for physics simulation that need to be platform independent.
But other than that, OpenGL is a bloated mess, anyone who has used it knows it. There are still bugs in OpenGL that date back from 1.2
Uniform Buffer and drawcalls have been bugged for like 10 years. No one even gives a damn, Apple is like 2 years behind on every OpenGL release because they don't want to deal with the bugs.
Why do you think no one develops games for Apple. The OpenGL API is a freaking mess. Hell, Apple has been developing their own OpenGL drivers for years now, they got tired of waiting on Nvidia and AMD who don't even care about OpenGL drivers, like, at all. The driver in your MAC thingy, is from Apple.