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Vulkan 3D graphics
The idea is that is it is being designed from the ground up to minimize CPU overhead and allow apps to control GPU operation more directly. Apparently, Vulkan will also enable better parallelization over multiple threads.
Why am I mentioning it on an Android blog? Google is working on providing support for Vulkan in the Android platform.
See the Electronics Weekly news report, highlighting the Imagination Technologies angle. Richard Wilson writes:
Imagination Technologies will demonstrate a prototype of the new Vulkan open-source graphics API on a Google Nexus Player with its PowerVR GPU. The intention is to demonstrate at the Siggraph computer graphics conference in Los Angeles this week, the capability of the soon to launched Vulkan API for the Android graphics developer community.
Vulkan, which is not yet publicly available, will mark the entry of open standards consortium Khronos into the low-level graphics API field.
You can also read more on the Google Developers blog.
Shannon Woods, Technical Program Manager at Google, writes:
To make it easier to write an application once that works across a variety of devices, Android 5.0 Lollipop significantly expanded the Android Compatibility Test Suite (CTS) with over fifty thousand new tests for OpenGL ES, and many more have been added since. This provides an extensive open source test suite for identifying problems in drivers so that they can be fixed, creating a more robust and reliable experience for both developers and end users.
For Vulkan, we’ll not only develop similar tests for use in the Android CTS, but we’ll also contribute them to Khronos for use in Vulkan’s own open source Conformance Test Suite. This will enable Khronos to test Vulkan drivers across platforms and hardware, and improve the 3D graphics ecosystem as a whole.
While Google will be helping to “create, test, and ship Vulkan”, the search giant says it is also going to contribute to and support OpenGL ES:
“As a developer, you’ll be able to choose which API is right for you: the simplicity of OpenGL ES, or the explicit control of Vulkan. We’re committed to providing an excellent developer experience, no matter which API you choose.”
It’s all still under development but the place to keep an eye on is www.khronos.org/vulkan.
httpv://youtu.be/P_I8an8jXuM
For the video above, Imagination writes: “On the left-hand side of the video, we are showing Vulkan and on the right we have OpenGL ES 3.0. We have attempted to ensure both versions run equivalent code and both run without extensions.”
