Android

Great moments in gaming: Google bringing the new Vulkan graphics standard in future Android versions

posted by Daniel P. / Nov 26, 2015, 3:25 AM

Great moments in gaming: Google bringing the new Vulkan graphics standard in future Android versions

If you haven't heard about the new Vulkan graphics standard, it's time to start paying attention, as Google just created a dedicated team to start employing it for Android. Vulkan is better than the current graphics APIs in the sense that it provides direct access to the GPU, allowing developers to fine-tune the resources their game or other app will gobble from the graphics subsystem, down to the individual cores and memory.

This is potentially a game-changer in developing graphics-intensive software, as it would allow more performance to be squeezed from the chipset, and at the same time will keep the power draw in check with more efficient and better optimized coding.

Valve has also taken up support for Vulkan in its Steam OS, reaching out to a third-party development team, LunarG. That same LunarG is now splitting, and its mobile software department is moving over to Google to work on incorporating Vulkan into Android. With Google and Valve on the side, Vulkan should quickly take off. Current high-end, and even some midrange chipsets, have the abilities to support Vulkan, though it is unlikely that Google will be ready with the necessary APIs before the eventual Android 7.0 N edition next year.

source: LunarG via AndroidPolice

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14 Comments

1. NoToFanboys

Posts: 3231; Member since: Oct 03, 2015

About time

posted on Nov 26, 2015, 3:28 AM 1

9. vincelongman

Posts: 5611; Member since: Feb 10, 2013

True, AMD first released Mantle in 2013 Apple released Metal in 2014 MS released DX12 earlier this year Khronos will finally release Vulkan at the end of this year, or early next year

posted on Nov 26, 2015, 5:43 AM 2

2. TyrionLannister unregistered

Linus in a PA linked video, nice.

posted on Nov 26, 2015, 3:47 AM 9

11. Khyron

Posts: 397; Member since: Sep 28, 2015

This goin to impact on ui smothnes And overall performance ir it is only for games

posted on Nov 26, 2015, 7:47 AM 0

3. greenelektron

Posts: 537; Member since: Sep 10, 2014

So even with a poor gpu, android phones can enjoy graphics intensive games? Is vulcan like that?

posted on Nov 26, 2015, 3:50 AM 2

4. vuyonc

Posts: 1088; Member since: Feb 24, 2014

The performance gain should be significant but not game changing for quite a while. Game development will actually be MORE difficult because developers need a lot of experience and time to understand and dig in to CPU and GPU resources for extra performance.

posted on Nov 26, 2015, 4:36 AM 1

8. vincelongman

Also should bring some decent efficiency gains too From Imagination Tech (makers of the PowerVR GPUs)http://blog.imgtec.com/powervr/vulkan-scaling-to-multiple-threads