Khronos Debuts OpenGL ES 3.2 & New GL Extensions, But No Vulkan This Week

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Khronos Debuts OpenGL ES 3.2 & New GL Extensions, But No Vulkan This Week

It's SIGGRAPH week! Our embargo was just lifted by The Khronos Group for talking about their exciting specification updates and more that they'll be sharing with the attendees at this annual, leading graphics conference in Los Angeles. In this article are the details on the new OpenGL ES 3.2 specification, new desktop OpenGL extensions, the Safety Critical Working Group, and some talk about SPIR-V/Vulkan but the new graphics API specification itself isn't being released from SIGGRAPH.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=21984

[blackout23]

Understandable that Apple wants to keep their own Vendor lock-in API relevant.

[OneTimeShot]

Understandable that Apple wants to keep their own Vendor lock-in API relevant.

From what I understand, DirectX12, Metal and Vulcan are pretty similar from a programmer's perspective. It's annoying, but hopefully Vulcan can "take over" the cross-platform bit - Khronos is playing catch-up again...

There is an interesting question around the future of OpenGL ES IMO. It used to be a "cut down" version of full-fat OpenGL, but it kind-of isn't any more. Will they just roll it back into OpenGL and have only a single API alongside Vulcan?

[Michael]

There is an interesting question around the future of OpenGL ES IMO. It used to be a "cut down" version of full-fat OpenGL, but it kind-of isn't any more. Will they just roll it back into OpenGL and have only a single API alongside Vulcan?

Good point, I can ask. My feeling though is not in the immediate future do they have such plans, maybe a few years still down the road. At least with Vulkan it will be unified from the start.

[Michael]

Update - NVIDIA puts out first driver - http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...nGL-2015-Linux

[uid313]

What hardware will support Vulkan?

Will it only be new hardware, or will old hardware support it too?

Can Vulkan run on DirectX 9 hardware?

[Michael]

What hardware will support Vulkan?

Will it only be new hardware, or will old hardware support it too?

Can Vulkan run on DirectX 9 hardware?

It's mentioned in the article what hardware supports Vulkan....

[dungeon]

What hardware will support Vulkan?

Will it only be new hardware, or will old hardware support it too?

Can Vulkan run on DirectX 9 hardware?

Same hardware as for DirectX 12

[blackout23]

I rather wonder if there will be feature sets and capability levels (like with DirectX) for Vulkan 1.0. Or if my 580 will be able to take advantage of Vulkan just as much as a 980 Ti.
They have to introduce something like this, since the API is supposed to span from mobile devices to powerful desktops and an ARM GPU really is something different from a Titan X.

[johnc]

Thanks for sharing this news.