#vulkan api

Since CRYENGINE 5.4 Preview includes powerful and simple-to-use features. These include assets for artists, designers, and coders. Yet that's not all CRYENGINE update 5.4 now includes Vulkan API support. So hopefully this will be a step toward games with Linux ports and Windows. Right off the top, Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Prey come to mind. Let alone Homefront The Revolution. So CRYENGINE update 5.4 opened up preview access. Therefore the suite of major new features that will help developers achieve their vision. Makomg the ever-evolving engine even more accessible. The update is available right now on Github. Where users can also find the full update notes. While also accessing the development roadmap. Which is shaped in conjunction with the CRYENGINE community. So keep in mind, the Github build does not show Linux native, yet more Windows support. Despite a few key features in the SDK.

Highlights in update 5.4:

Vulkan API Support: In 5.4 the engine includes a beta version of the Vulkan renderer to accompany the DX12 implementation from last year. Vulkan is a cross-platform 3D graphics and compute API. Which enables developers to take advantage of high-performance real-time 3D graphics. With balanced CPU / GPU usage. For the preview release, Vulkan support in CRYENGINE will be compatible for projects on PC. And the aim is to deploy additional Android support in future. Substance Materials: Users can now use Substance Archive files (*.sbsar) to create Substance Graph instances for texture generation. This is a workflow which was used by Crytek’s development team during the production of the award-winning Robinson: The Journey as well as the current production Hunt: Showdown, and is now available to all users within the Sandbox Editor. Entity Components: CRYENGINE's new component entity system provides a modular and intuitive way to create games. It allows level designers to place standard prefabs into the game. which can be used via Schematyc for event updating. This expands the ways in which non-coders can simply and rapidly create entire games with CRYENGINE.

Templates:

C# Templates: Expanding the Launcher improvements, the engine now includes a selection of templates. Getting users up and running quickly. Several templates have been brought over and updated from the C++ template section. Including the Blank Plugin and a C# Third Person Template. Terrain Upgrades: 5.4 expands the terrain system with upgrades to further raise the fidelity for landscapes. Objects may now be marked to become part of a terrain mesh. Allowing a much higher level of detail and dramatically extending the capabilities. And flexibility of CRYENGINE’s terrain editing tools. Developers can also take advantage of an improved terrain shader. This will support terrain object blending for blends between objects and the terrain with material falloff.

5.4 Feature - Terrain Blending

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Star Citizen is making gaming news again. This time the upcoming space simulator game now using Amazon’s own Lumberyard engine is making changes. Cloud Imperium’s Chris Roberts has discussed the game getting Direct X support in the past. Yet now, it seems that plans have changed.

"Years ago we stated our intention to support DX12, but since the introduction of Vulkan which has the same feature set and performance advantages this seemed a much more logical rendering API to use as it doesn't force our users to upgrade to Windows 10 and opens the door for a single graphics API that could be used on all Windows 7, 8, 10 & Linux. As a result our current intention is to only support Vulkan and eventually drop support for DX11. As this shouldn't effect any of our backers. DX12 would only be consideration if we found it gave us a specific and substantial advantage over Vulkan. The API's really aren't that different though. So 95% of the work for these APIs is to change the paradigm of the rendering pipeline. Which is the same for both APIs."

So Nvidia recently published a high-level abstraction layer call VkHLF (Vulkan High-Level Framework). While this is specifically available for the Vulkan API, the framework is an initiative to simplify game development. While this could make gaming playable on a Playstation 4 running as a Steam Machine.

VkHLF is an experimental high level abstraction library on top of Vulkan. It adds features like transparent suballocation, resource tracking on the CPU & GPU and simplified resource creation while staying as close as possible to the original Vulkan API. In contrast to Vulkan-Hpp, which is carefully created to be a zero-overhead C++ abstraction for Vulkan. This library adds significant higher-level functionality. Even so, it has been in design for much high-performance. But it can cost performance relative to native Vulkan if not employed with the intended usage patterns. Since this project is in its early stages and under heavy development expect bugs and interface changes for a while. It should not be put to use in production code, yet!

How will game developers be able to use High-Level Framework?

Since the VkHLF adds quite a lot of useful functions with the Vulkan API. so this includes things like reference counting, device suballocator and GPU resource tracking. While in contrast to the Vulkan-Hpp, VkHLF is creating functionality at a much higher level. So the design is for high-performance, since reduced performance will happen if used out of the outlined usage patterns. Which should make things more straight forward for developers trying to optimise their game performance. Creating an OpenGL advantage over Windows and DirectX 12. An abstraction layer such as VkHLF will likely reduce development complexity. Since this is not hiding the “behind the scene” code for a particular set of functions. Therefore the best example is this. A developer invokes a function call such as “buildHouse (brick, mortar)”. So the function will invoke lesser functions to build a house without further action from the programmer. Which makes abstraction layers great for making development faster. But will likely lead to computing overhead if the games design has been setup poorly. Therefore calling more than it needs to. This is why Nvidia currently emphasizes that the VkHLF is in its experimental phase and should not be made available for production. These are the sort of innovations we have been waiting for. In fact, this will likely mark 2017 as the year of the API support amongst game development. Since this will give Linux the well-deserved edge needed in the gaming industry, the performance. We would be keen to see how well the Superposition Benchmark from Unigine would perform. So for those interested, check out the VkHLF source code here.

According to recent updates, the middle of October, Crytek should be rolling Vulkan API support in CryEngine. The CryEngine roadmap has been released, including specific details about the upcoming CryEngine 5.2 and 5.3. CryEngine 5.2 is set with DirectX 12 multi-GPU support, the complete DX12 renderer, then full C++11 support for engine code, possibly PhysX support and even more. Now, with CryEngine 5.3 due out in mid-October, the developers have planned full support for the Vulkan API. Along with other graphics and rendering updates, audio improvements, sandbox enhancements and still more. Hopefully by then we will see the release of CryEngine game Homefront: The Revolution on Linux, with Vulkan support.

Epic Games just revealed that Unreal Engine 4 will be the first to provide official support for the Vulkan API. A demo has just been presented at the Mobile World Congress 2016, but only for the mobile. Last week Khronos released the working version of the Vulkan API, and now many companies are eager to provide support for it. Hardware manufactors AMD, Intel, and Nvidia have been the first to push native support for Vulkan, but they were also part of the development group. The first to announce support for Vulkan is of course Croteam studio, for their title The Talos Principle. But now Unreal Engine is the first game engine to get on board. Which is expected to be followed by Source from Valve, CryEngine from Crytek, and of course many others.

Demo for the mobile platform Vulkan as we already know is a low-level API for multiplayer platforms, having been referred to as agnostic in that aspect. With processing power being the one draw-back. Above, Epic Games presented a demo of the Unreal Engine that functions mobile platform during the Mobile World Congress 2016, using Vulkan to show off the new changes. "ProtoStar introduces a slew of new Unreal Engine 4 rendering achievements on mobile, including dynamic planar reflections; full GPU particle support on mobile, including vector fields; temporal anti-aliasing (TAA); high-quality ASTC texture compression; full scene dynamic cascaded shadows; chromatic aberration; mobile dynamic light refraction; filmic tonemapping; improved mobile static reflections; high-quality mobile depth of field; and Vulkan API support with thousands of dynamic objects onscreen. Get Unreal, the first engine to support Vulkan, for free," reads the video summary. Vulkan, like the Unreal Engine is designed to work on multiple platforms, including Linux and mobile. Despite only just release, Vulkan 1.0 already proves it's capable to provid the quality and performance that it promised. And yes, Vulkan 1.0 is in "direct" competition with Microsoft's DirectX 12. The fact that a company such as Epic Games have provided support so fast, this new level of technology is a good sign for the Linux users. Creating further competition in the marketplace, for a free open-source operating system. The new evolution in gaming. How do you think the new Vulkan API will be used? What are your projections?

Today, in an announcement through ArsTechnica, the Khronos Group has released version 1.0 of the Vulkan API specification, the next-generation version of OpenGL. Originally based on AMD's proprietary Mantle API, Vulkan API is an open-source, low-overhead API that promises huge performance gains, but in 3D applications, giving developers low-level control of graphics and CPU hardware, similar games consoles PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. As well as publishing the spec itself, the Khronos group has also published a set of conformance tests to demonstrate compliance with the specification. Nvidia today has released a driver that passes these conformance tests for Windows and Linux. Drivers from Imagination Technologies (for Linux), Intel (also for Linux), and Qualcomm (for Android) have also passed the tests. AMD has a beta driver too, but unlike Nvidia's effort, AMD's has not passed the tests yet. These tests, are all available on GitHub, with the Khronos Group accepting outside contributions. 3D developers that find any areas where these drivers differ from the manufacturers in incompatibility, in hopes of submitting to conformant tests and highlighting the inconsistency, making it easier for the driver developers. So far Unity, Epic (Unreal Engine), Valve (Source 2), and Dice (Frostbite), and among others have all pledged to support and be involved with the creation of Vulkan. Currently none have games that make use of the API. Croteam has promised that The Talos Principle will support Vulkan at launch, which should be updated on Steam as well. For the full post and breakdown of Vulkan, check out ArsTechnica news.