Nintendo's Switch Game Console Is Vulkan & OpenGL Conformant

Written by Michael Larabel in Vulkan on 19 December 2016 at 12:32 PM EST. 54 Comments
VULKAN
Since Nintendo's Switch game console launch powered by the NVIDIA Tegra we have suspected they were making use of Vulkan as the graphics API, particularly with Nintendo joining The Khronos Group, now it's been pretty much firmed up.

The Nintendo Switch has been certified as a Vulkan 1.0 conformant implementation by The Khronos Group. Over on Khronos.org is now public confirmation with the Nintendo Switch currently being listed as the newest certified Vulkan product. The OS is listed as "Nintendo OS" and it passes the Vulkan 1.0.1.0 CTS.

The certification passing was yesterday, 18 December. Additionally, the Nintendo Switch is also listed as hitting OpenGL 4.5 and OpenGL ES 3.2 conformance. There is no mention of OpenCL conformance or any other Khronos APIs for the Nintendo Switch.

The Nintendo Switch hybrid game console is expected to be released worldwide in March. Hopefully ahead of launch we'll still be able to learn more details about the "Nintendo OS" and how many titles are OpenGL vs. Vulkan, etc.
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Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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