Vulkan (API)

Vulkan
Developer(s) Khronos Group, developed from AMD's Mantle[1][2][3][4][5]
Initial release 16 February 2016 (2016-02-16)[6]
Stable release
1.0.36 / 2 December 2016 (2016-12-02)[7]
Development status Active
Operating system Android, Linux, Tizen, Microsoft Windows[8][9]
Platform Compatible hardware
Type 3D graphics and compute API[10]
Website Khronos.org/Vulkan
As of 7 June 2016

Vulkan is a low-overhead, cross-platform 3D graphics and compute API first announced at GDC 2015 by the Khronos Group.[10][11][12] The Vulkan API was initially referred to as the "next generation OpenGL initiative," or "OpenGL next[13]" by Khronos, but use of those names were discontinued once the Vulkan name was announced.[14] Vulkan is derived from and built upon components of AMD's Mantle API, which was donated by AMD to Khronos with the intent of giving Khronos a foundation on which to begin developing a low-level API that they could standardize across the industry, much like OpenGL.[3][10][15][16][17][18][19]

Like OpenGL, Vulkan targets high-performance realtime 3D graphics applications such as videogames and interactive media across all platforms, and offers higher performance and lower CPU usage, much like Direct3D 12 and Mantle. Vulkan also has the ability to render 2D graphics applications,[20] however it is generally suited for 3D. In addition to its lower CPU usage, Vulkan is also able to better distribute work amongst multiple CPU cores.[21]

Features

OpenGL and Vulkan are both rendering APIs, in both cases the GPU executes shaders while the CPU executes everything else. Vulkan has a simpler API which reduces the amount of computation the CPU has to do and it replaces the monolithic global state machine with a much more programmable approach. This enables a fine-grained programming of tasks on the GPU.

Vulkan is intended to provide a variety of advantages over other APIs as well as its spiritual predecessor, OpenGL. Vulkan offers lower overhead, more direct control over the GPU, and lower CPU usage.[12] Intended advantages include:

OpenGL Vulkan[26]
one single global state machine object-based with no global state
state is tied to a single context all state concepts are localized to a command buffer
GPU memory and synchronization are usually hidden explicit control over memory management and synchronization
extensive error checking Vulkan drivers do no error checking at runtime,
there is validation layer for developers

Planned features

At SIGGRAPH 2016, Khronos announced that Vulkan would be getting support for automatic multi-GPU features, similar to what is offered by DirectX 12.[27] Multi-GPU support included in-API removes the need for SLi or Crossfire which requires graphics cards to be of the same model. API multi-GPU instead allows the API to intelligently split the workload among two or more completely different GPUs.[28] For example, integrated GPUs included on the CPU can be used in conjunction with a high-end dedicated GPU for a slight performance boost.

Software that supports Vulkan

Games

Game engines

Development tools

GPU PerfStudio 3.6 supports Vulkan on Windows and Linux.[45]

OS components

The Vulkan Window System Interface (WSI) does for Vulkan what EGL does for OpenGL ES.[46] EGL is used by OpenGL ES programs to interface with the native platform windowing system. EGL handles context management, surface binding and rendering synchronization.

Compatibility

Initial specifications stated that Vulkan will work on hardware that currently supports OpenGL ES 3.1 or OpenGL 4.X and up.[47] As Vulkan support requires new graphics drivers, this does not necessarily imply that every existing device that supports OpenGL ES 3.1 or OpenGL 4.x will have Vulkan drivers available.

Android 7.0 Nougat supports Vulkan.[48] The software was released in August 2016.[49]

Vulkan support for iOS and macOS has not been announced by Apple, but at least one company provides a Vulkan implementation that runs on top of Metal on iOS and macOS devices.[50]

Company Hardware Software support: Vulkan 1.0
Microarchitecture Available since GPUs (chips) Graphic cards / SoCs Linux Microsoft Windows[lower-alpha 1] Android Nougat and later[51]
AMD
GCN 4th June 2016 Polaris 10, Polaris 11, Vega 10 Radeon Rx 400 Series AMDGPU PRO (Ubuntu & RHEL)[52][53]
Mesa/RADV[54]
Radeon Software[55] N/A
GCN 3rd August 2014 Tonga, Fiji, Carrizo Radeon R9 Series
GCN 2nd March 2013 Bonaire, Hawaii, Kaveri, Kabini, Temash, Mullins, Beema, Carrizo-L Radeon HD 7790, PlayStation 4, Xbox One Work in Progress
GCN 1st February 2012 Oland, Cape Verde, Pitcairn, Tahiti Radeon HD 77xx7900 Series
TeraScale 3
"Northern Islands"
December 2010 Aruba (Trinity/Richland), Barts, Turks, Caicos, Cayman Radeon HD 7xxx76xx Series, Radeon HD 6000 Series not supported
TeraScale 2
"Evergreens"
September 2009 Cedar, Cypress, Juniper, Redwood, Palm, Sumo Radeon HD 5000 Series
TeraScale 1 May 2007 R600, RV630, RV610, RV790, RV770, … Radeon HD 2000 Series, HD 3000, HD 4000
Nvidia
Pascal May 2016 GP100, GP104, GP106, GP107 GeForce 10 series, Tegra X2 Nvidia GeForce driver[56][57] Nvidia GeForce driver[57] Yes
Maxwell 2.0 September 2014 GM200, GM204, GM206, GM20B GeForce 900 series, Tegra X1
Maxwell 1.0 February 2014 GM107, GM108 GeForce GTX 750 Ti, GTX 750, GTX 860M
Kepler March 2012 GK110, GK104, GK106, GK107, GK208 GeForce 600 series, GeForce 700 series, Tegra K1
Fermi March 2010 GF100, GF104, GF106, GF108, GF110, GF114, GF116, GF119 GeForce 400 series, GeForce 500 series not supported
Tesla 2.0 June 2008 GT200, GT215, GT216, GT218, GeForce 200 series, GeForce 300 series
Tesla 1.0 November 2006 G80, G84, G86, G92, G94, G96, G98 GeForce 8 series, GeForce 9 series, GeForce 100 series
Intel
Kaby Lake 2016 Mesa/ANV[58][59] Intel Graphics driver 15.40.20 beta N/A
Skylake August 2015 Core i3-/i5-/i7-6000, Core m3-/m5-/m7-6Yxx, Pentium G4xxx, Celeron G39xx
Broadwell September 2014 Core i3-/i5-/i7-5000, Core M-5Yxx not supported
Haswell September 2012 Core i3-/i5-/i7-4000, Pentium G3xxx, Celeron G18xx
Ivy Bridge April 2012 Core i3-/i5-/i7-3000, Pentium G2xxx, Celeron G16xx
Sandy Bridge January 2011 Core i3-/i5-/i7-2000, Pentium Gxxx, Celeron Gxxx not supported
Westmere January 2010 Core i3-/i5-/i7-xxx, Pentium G69xx, Celeron G1101
Imagination Technologies
PowerVR Series 8XE February 2016 GE8200, GE8300 PowerVR Graphics SDK v4.1[60]
PowerVR Series 7XT November 2014 GT7200, GT7400, GT7600, GT7800, GT7900 Apple A9, Helio X30 (MT679?)
PowerVR Series 7XE November 2014 GE7400, GE7800
PowerVR Series 6XT January 2014 GX6240, GX6250, GX6450, GX6650 Apple A8, A8X, MediaTek MT8173, MT8176,
PowerVR Series 6XE January 2014 G6050, G6060, G6100 (XE), G6110 RK3368
PowerVR Series 6 (Rogue) January 2012 G6100, G6200, G6230, G6400, G6430, G6630 MediaTek MT6595M, MT6595T, MT6595M, MT6795, MT8135, Helio X10 (MT6795), LG H13, Apple A7, Atom Z3460, Z3480, Z3530, Z3560, Z3570, Z3580
PowerVR Series 5XT January 2009 SGX543, SGX544, SGX554 Apple S1, A5, A5X, A6, A6X, NovaThor L8540, L8580, L9540, TI OMAP 4470, 5430, 5432, MediaTek MT5327, MT6589M, MT6589T, MT6589, MT8117, MT8121, MT8125, MT8389, Atom Z2460, Z2520, Z2560, Z2580, Z2760, Exynos 5410 not supported
Qualcomm
Adreno 500 series Adreno 510, Adreno 530 Snapdragon 430, 625, 650, 652, 820, 821 1.0[61]
Adreno 400 series Snapdragon 415, 615, 616, 617, 805, 808, 810
Adreno 300 series Snapdragon 200, 208, 210, 212, 400, 410, 412, 600, 800, 801 not supported
ARM
Bifrost[62] June 2016 Mali-G71, … TBA 1.0[63]
Midgard 4th Q4 2015 Mali-T860, Mali-T830, Mali-T880 Exynos 8890, Exynos 7870, Kirin 950, 955, MediaTek MT6738, MT6750, Helio X20 (MT6797), X25 (MT6797T), P10 (MT6755), P20 (MT6757)
Midgard 3rd October 2013 Mali-T760, … Exynos 7420, Exynos 5433, MT6752, MT6732, RK3288
Midgard 2nd August 2012 Mali-T600 series, T720 Exynos 5250, 5260, 5410, 5420, 5422, 5430, 5800, 7580, Mediatek MT6735, MT6753, Kirin 920, 925, 930, 935 not supported

History

The Khronos Group began a project to create a next generation graphics API in July 2014 with a kickoff meeting at Valve Corporation.[64] At SIGGRAPH 2014, the project was publicly announced with a call for participants.[10]

According to the US Patent and Trademark Office, the trademark for Vulkan was filed on February 19, 2015.[65]

Vulkan was formally named and announced at Game Developers Conference 2015, although speculation and rumors centered around a new API existed beforehand and referred to it as "glNext".[66]

In early 2015, LunarG (funded by Valve) developed and showcased a Linux driver for Intel which enabled Vulkan compatibility on the HD 4000 series integrated graphics, despite the open source Mesa drivers not being fully compatible with OpenGL 4.0 until later that year.[67][68] There is still the possibility[69] of Sandy Bridge support, since it supports compute through Direct3D11.

On August 10, 2015, Google announced that future versions of Android would support Vulkan.[70] Android Nougat launched support for Vulkan on August 22, 2016.

On December 18, 2015, the Khronos Group announced that the 1.0 version of the Vulkan specification was nearly complete and would be released when conformant drivers were available.[12] The specification and the open-source Vulkan SDK were released on February 16, 2016.[6]

See also

Notes

  1. Drivers so far have supported Windows 7 and later.

References

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  2. Kirsch, Nathan. "Is AMD Mantle Dead As We Have Known It? Vulcan API Uses Mantle Technology for OpenGL". Legit Reviews. Retrieved 25 June 2015.
  3. 1 2 Shilov, Anton. "AMD: Vulkan absorbed 'best and brightest' parts of Mantle". KitGuru. Retrieved 26 June 2015.
  4. Koduri, Raja (4 March 2015). "On APIs and the future of Mantle". AMD. Retrieved 19 May 2015. ...(T)he Khronos Group has selected Mantle to serve as the foundation for Vulkan...
  5. Michaud, Scott (3 March 2015). "GDC 15: Khronos Acknowledges Mantle's Start of Vulkan". PC Perspective. Retrieved 19 May 2015.
  6. 1 2 https://www.khronos.org/news/press/khronos-releases-vulkan-1-0-specification
  7. https://www.khronos.org/registry/vulkan/specs/1.0/xhtml/vkspec.html
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  12. 1 2 3 "Vulkan - Graphics and compute belong together". Khronos.org. Retrieved 2015-03-05.
  13. Smith, Ryan. "Khronos Announces Next Generation OpenGL Initiative". Retrieved 2016-09-24.
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  15. Mah Ung, Gordon (6 March 2015). "Mantle is a Vulkan: AMD's dead graphics API rises from the ashes in OpenGL's successor". PCWorld.
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  28. http://www.anandtech.com/show/10067/ashes-of-the-singularity-revisited-beta/4
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  30. "Dota 2 Update - May 23rd 2016". store.steampowered.com. Valve. Retrieved 24 May 2016.
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  33. Papadopoulos, John (21 July 2016). "Here is your first look at the first Quake being recreated in Unreal Engine 4 (fan project)". Dark Side of Gaming. Retrieved 26 August 2016.
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  40. http://www.tweaktown.com/news/53506/directx-12-vulkan-support-way-cryengine/index.html
  41. https://blogs.unity3d.com/2016/05/19/make-your-daydreams-a-reality/
  42. "Xenko 1.7β released!". 1 Jul 2016.
  43. http://www.intrinsic-engine.com/
  44. http://forums.torque3d.org/viewtopic.php?t=617#p5148
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  49. "Final Developer Preview before Android 7.0 Nougat begins rolling out". 2016-07-19.
  50. "MoltenVK". Molten. Retrieved 5 April 2016.
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  52. "AMDGPU-PRO 16.40 Released For Ubuntu & Red Hat Linux Systems". 2016-10-27.
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  62. "ARM Bifrost GPU Architecture". 2016-05-30.
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External links

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