Feral Interactive posted on their Facebook page “We’re crazy excited to announce that Mad Max is getting revved to utilise Vulkan, the Khronos Group’s next-generation graphics API.” Instructions on how to sign up for the beta are online. Phoronix has posted a short benchmark comparing Mad Max on OpenGL and Vulkan.
Cloud Imperium Games developer Ali Brown indicated that Star Citizen will be dropping DirectX support in favor of Vulkan. Specifically, Brown mentioned that CIG had been developing on DX11, with an intent to support DX12. However, because Vulkan enables single-API support for older version of Windows (and Linux) without sacrificing performance and features, the plan now is to move away from DirectX completely.
AMD’s deal with Bethesda spans multiple games across a range of series. The crux is primarily to implement Vulkan as well as “the computing and graphics power of AMD Ryzen CPUs and Radeon GPUs.”
Celebrating a successful first year, the Vulkan API is gaining tremendous momentum in high-fidelity gaming. Vulkan support appears in leading game engines such as Unity and Unreal, numerous game studios actively developing Vulkan titles, and a dozen Vulkan titles shipping including Doom, Quake, The Talos Principle and Dota 2. Vulkan drivers are also shipping from all of the major GPU manufacturers for desktop and mobile systems. Today, Khronos has released new Vulkan extensions for cross-platform access to Virtual Reality and multi-GPU functionality. Find out more about growing Vulkan momentum and the updates and extensions released at GDC here.
In a recent blog post, Croteam announced ‘Serious Sam Fusion 2017’ is the label the team has given to a large update that will be hitting all of its recent games. All games starting at Serious Sam 3 will be playable on SteamOS, Linux, and macOS. Croteam is also removing DirectX 9 support in favour of the Vulkan API.
Croteam has also released an update to The Talos Principle that includes improvements to its Vulkan renderer that was previously available as beta.
The LibRetro crew is now working on a Vulkan renderer for a PlayStation One emulator. They have a Vulkan renderer working for the Beetle PSX, but the code hasn’t been published yet. In the past few days the LibRetro crew uploaded some YouTube videos showing the Vulkan-renderered PlayStation One emulator in action.
The CryEngine roadmap has been released, including specific details about the upcoming CryEngine 5.2 and 5.3. Developers have planned full support for the Vulkan API around mid-october 2016.
Red Gaming Tech had an interview with Tom Olson chair of the Vulkan Working Group, and Neil Trevett President of the Khronos Group. Tom Olson commented “We’re really eager to hear from first-generation developers about what kind of experiences they are having.” Neil Trevett wrote “the rate of Vulkan adoption has been faster than any API that Khronos has ever produced.” There’s a lot of good information on many aspects of Vulkan, head on over and read The Vulkan Interview.
Samsung Electronics invites game enthusiasts from around the world to enjoy an immersive on-site gaming experience at E3, one of the largest game events in the world. One demo will be the Vulkan API Game Experience with the Galaxy S7 equipped with the Vulkan API that enables game developers to deliver amazing graphics and a high-quality gaming experience. Get the chance to play the first games leveraging the technology, Need for Speed™ No Limits, HIT and Vainglory.
Hardware upgrades, including faster GPUs and CPUs, are poised to improve Linux gaming. The latest gaming titles will come to Linux much faster with Vulkan, a graphics technology that should drive gaming forward on the OS. Many games are written using the Unity Engine from Unity Technologies, which is looking to add Vulkan support in the future. The Unreal Engine, another gaming development platform, already supports Vulkan.
The folks at Gameranx have posted a high level overview of why Vulkan is important to gamers and why gamers should take notice. It should be clarified however, that it is not just AMD that is working with the Khronos Group on building Vulkan. There are a large number of companies working together under Khronos to bring Vulkan to life.
Tweaktown talked to Martin Best, Mozilla’s Director of Platform Product Management about the future of WebGL and gaming in the browser. Martin says “We have been working to improve the performance, reach and capability of WebGL. WebGL 2 is in development and already in Firefox Nightly for testing.” Read the entire interview.
At the Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2016 event at MWC in Barcelona, Epic Games announced that Unreal Engine 4 supports the Vulkan API and Samsung mentions Vulkan (video). Samsung showed the ProtoStar real-time 3D experience built with Unreal Engine 4 technology utilizing the Vulkan API, running on the new Samsung Galaxy S7. “Anytime we can converge on an idea, particularly an idea like Vulkan, which is made by the industry, is asked for by the industry, everybody gets stronger.” Wyeth Johnson, Lead Technical Artist, Epic Games. Get Unreal, the first engine to support Vulkan.
Vulkan is the new generation, open-standard and cross-platform API descended from AMD Mantle, forged by the industry. As the product of an incredible collaboration between many industry hardware and software vendors including AMD, Vulkan paves the way for PC games with exceptional performance, image quality and features.AMD has a Vulkan Overview Blog and a GPUOpen Vulkan Technical Blog.