Playing With Vulkan Through Python, Basic Performance Figures To C++

The language bindings for the Vulkan high-performance graphics API have exploded since the debut of Vulkan 1.0 earlier this year. There's support from Rust to Java for interacting with this Khronos graphics API, including support for Python.

A Phoronix reader pointed out to us today python-vulkan-triangle as a nice example application for interacting with Vulkan via Python. This Python program simply draws a triangle in a window while using ctypes for the binding to Vulkan.

This Python Vulkan Triangle demo program is still being tuned, but under Windows 10 with a Radeon R9 280 the developer reports around ~4000 FPS with the no-debug Python build versus ~4300 FPS when running the same demo program written in C++. With a Radeon R6 on an AMD A10-7300, the performance was ~750 FPS for the Python version to ~800 FPS to the C++ version. C++ is faster as expected, but the performance is relatively close compared to other Python vs. C++ non-graphics benchmarks. The developer also noted the frame-rate for the Python Vulkan demo program is much less stable than the C++ version.

Those interested in this multi-platform program for coding Python Vulkan programs can learn more or download the code over on GitHub.