So would this help older games with updated drivers, or only for newer games that use this new version? I have a Windows tablet with a dual-core Atom and a PowerVR GPU and it performs worse in 3D graphics than my pre-iPad netbook with a single core Atom and Intel GMA.
Companies would create a separate Vulkan driver that would live alongside the OpenGL ES driver; the article mentions some of the advantages in terms of performance and stability.
This is an entirely new API, so it would only help games that are written to use it.
The CPU usage drop is impressive, and great news for embedded devices.