Android P to support Vulkan graphics API 1.1 for better looking, better performing games

2. sgodsell (Posts: 6485; Member since: 16 Mar 2013)

The author got it wrong. Vulkan 1.0 from OpenGL was a significant leap in speed. However 1.1 is not so much of a speed increase. As of right now all the major game engines already support Vulkan graphics. For instance it's just a matter of toggling a switch in Unity or Unreal.

As far as midrange and low end SoCs are concerned. The SD 430, 435, 450, SD 617, 625, 630, 660, and a number of other SoC models in between already support 1.0. So Vulkan 1.1 will be supported as well.

OpenGL was single threaded. Where as Vulkan is multithreaded, and can achieve significant increase in speed. I always laugh at those benchmark tests like GFXBench, 3DMark and others when they still use OpenGL to Apples Metal. Btw Apples Metal is the closest thing to Vulkan graphics. Yet they will compare iPhones using Metal benchmarks to Android smartphones using OpenGL instead of Vulkan. It's not like those benchmark programs can't be updated. Besides Android 7 had Vulkan 1.0 back in 2016. So those benchmark programs should be updated by now.

4. sgodsell (Posts: 6485; Member since: 16 Mar 2013)

Clearly you enjoy playing the part of the fool. Plus you don't know your head from your butt when it comes to actual development. Most engines already support Vulkan. Unity had Vulkan support back in 2016. Unreal had Vulkan support at the start of 2017. It's as easy as turning on a toggle in most game engines.

5. 47AlphaTango (Posts: 702; Member since: 27 Sep 2015)

sgodsell Have you check the playstore fool? Since 2016 up to now. How many android games do you think is vulkan optimized? How many unity games on android do you think is Vulkan optimized?

6. truthbetold (Posts: 42; Member since: 16 Oct 2015)

It is practically a toggle, at least in Unity, and the same goes for Metal. There's no reason to keep these off since the engine falls back to OpenGL in case the device doesn't support it. Now, it's not possible to know how many game devs use it, and the overall quality of the game isn't indicative of the API used.