I hope this is right.
Having to rely on companies to update their drivers or open the source code has been a major pain point for a long time. Especially on mobile where there are many custom chips from different companies.
Having to rely on companies to update their drivers or open the source code has been a major pain point for a long time. Especially on mobile where there are many custom chips from different companies.
If Vulkan is too low level, perf will could be absolutely terrible. If chip makers expect a third party to -effectively- write an optimizing compiler for their graphics chips, they're probably[0] gonna have to tell people a lot more about those chips than they do already.
Worst case, maybe we're looking at another Itanium failure where noone decides that it's worth it to write such software.
(Note: I know next-to-nothing about Vulkan and only slightly more about modern graphics programming[1]. It's entirely possible that this worry is wholly unfounded. Also, given that the open-source AMD/ATI driver exists and has decent performance, it's highly unlikely that this will be a repeat of the Itanium failure.)
[0] Really, "they" is largely code for "Nvidia". :p
[1] I did a fair bit of fixed-function OpenGL software in a former life, tho! Remarkable how poor and ever-changing the support for that was from one NVidia driver revision to the next.
I would wager that a very large slice of the folks doing graphics programming are largely incapable of writing a new high-performance graphics card driver.
Is there demand? Sure. Does anyone want to exert the effort required to meet that demand? I don't know.
Once upon a time, the CPU manufacturers were demanding a CPU that was easier for them to design, but just as performant. This lead to the Itanium, which had a simple hardware design but required very complex compilers for optimal performance. Thing is, noone wanted to expend the effort required to make a sufficiently clever compiler in order to get the best perf possible out of the CPU.
Anyway, if you can deliver more than platitudes, I'm all ears. I'm pretty ignorant on the topic and would love more information. :)
Oh. You mean modern game 3D engine development houses. Okay. :) I would expect that these companies would be far more likely to employ very smart people than some random software house that also does OGL/D3D-driven graphics. However -as you allude to in your comment- skill in engine design and construction does not guarantee skill in graphics driver design and construction.
> When OpenGL was first designed, GPUs were fixed-function hardware...
Oh, I know. In my first message in this thread, I mention the fixed-function work that I did in a former life. I've read about OpenGL back when it was just SGI's GL. I've even made use of OpenGL's network transparency! :)
I think you've lost sight of why I started this thread.
runeks wrote:
> Vulkan's purpose is for GPU hardware companies to stop having to write graphics software (drivers)... Hopefully [Vulkan's API will be] so close [to the metal] that the driver will be very thin.
bobajeff replied:
> Having to rely on companies to update their drivers or open the source code has been a major pain point for a long time.
bobajeff seems to be thinking that Vulkan development will be handled primarily by third parties.
runeks's comment reminded of Itanium, a CPU whose programming API -as one could call it- was very, very thin; requiring compiler authors to do a huge amount of work -such as instruction scheduling- traditionally done by logic in the hardware.
A big reason Itanium failed in the wider market was because it asked far too much of what -i guess- could be called CPU driver writers. It hid far too little of what was required to get good performance out of modern CPUs, instead demanding that that work be offloaded on to compiler authors.
Do you see why I might be concerned about the same sort of problems with Vulkan? Can you provide some technical -rather than social- details about Vulkan plans to assuage this concern?
When it comes to Vulkan development, it is a pretty much a joint effort. We (the GPU providers) design the graphics processors and write the drivers/compilers to support Khronos. Then the application developers (the middleware guys) adopt their engines and libraries for Vulkan too in cooperation with us and other members of Khronos. Finally, the high-level application developers (e.g. games developers) port their software too. In addition, third parties might also create Vulkan open source drivers and compilers for the GPUs so it's a combination of in-house and third-party work.