Vulkan or opengl

[DiamondShark286]

I am coding a game with java and I was going to use lwjgl with opengl for the rendering but my friend told me opengl is not being updated anymore so I should try to use Vulkan lwjgl has an api for it  but I can find any tutorials on it and I have no c++ experience.  Any help would be appreciated.

[The_Denks]

OpenGL is a much simpler API (relative to Vulkan).

However, Vulkan has higher performance

 

Pick your poison...

[DiamondShark286]

Just now, UberGamerKing said:

OpenGL is a much simpler API (relative to Vulkan).

However, Vulkan has higher performance

 

Pick your poison...

ok thanks but is there any tutorials fr java Vulkan you know of because I can't find any(this makes it rather difficult to do anything)

[The_Denks]

1 minute ago, Tb428 said:

ok thanks but is there any tutorials fr java Vulkan you know of because I can't find any(this makes it rather difficult to do anything)

I dont know how to code either of those, just know those facts about them

I only know Python

[DiamondShark286]

1 minute ago, UberGamerKing said:

I dont know how to code either of those, just know those facts about them

I only know Python

ok thanks anyway.

[vanished]

Lets try that again

[Mooshe]

8 hours ago, Tb428 said:

ok thanks but is there any tutorials fr java Vulkan you know of because I can't find any(this makes it rather difficult to do anything)

LWJGL just wraps OpenGL using JNI (that's why you have different distributions depending on the operating system). Taking a look at LWJGL's site, it apparently supports Vulkan. You can check out Vulkan demo's on LWJGL3's github repository.

[mathijs727]

In my experience OpenGL isnt perfect but Vulkan is way more complicated.

Since you are working with Java and this is your first graphics project I'd recommend OpenGL or DirectX 11 (Windows only).

[trag1c]

Lets make this perfectly clear.

 

Vulkan and DX12 are not intended to replace OpenGL or DX11. They're intended to be an alternative option for experienced teams to help them push their hardware and game technology to the limits when necessary. 

 

DX11 and OpenGL 4.x are here to stay for those who don't need their rendering tech to process draw calls at a ridiculous rate. Or for those are simply not experienced enough to program their own rendering driver that has less overhead than DX or OGL. (This more or less what you are doing. Vulkan and DX12 are basically just an abstraction for accessing the more complex bits of the GPU directly.)

 

TL;DR just use OpenGL 4.x and you will have the same visual fidelity as Vulkan with half the complexity and man hours. Provided your scenery isnt mind boggling complex.

[Gachr]

2 hours ago, trag1c said:

Lets make this perfectly clear.

 

Vulkan and DX12 are not intended to replace OpenGL or DX11. They're intended to be an alternative option for experienced teams to help them push their hardware and game technology to the limits when necessary. 

 

DX11 and OpenGL 4.x are here to stay for those who don't need their rendering tech to process draw calls at a ridiculous rate. Or for those are simply not experienced enough to program their own rendering driver that has less overhead than DX or OGL. (This more or less what you are doing. Vulkan and DX12 are basically just an abstraction for accessing the more complex bits of the GPU directly.)

 

TL;DR just use OpenGL 4.x and you will have the same visual fidelity as Vulkan with half the complexity and man hours. Provided your scenery isnt mind boggling complex.

Umm...

Quote

Vulkan, formerly named the "Next Generation OpenGL Initiative" (glNext),^[37][38] is a grounds-up redesign effort to unify OpenGL and OpenGL ES into one common API that will not be backwards compatible with existing OpenGL versions.^[39][40][41] The initial version of the API was released on 16 February 2016.

It is apparently supposed to replace OpenGL.

[mathijs727]

3 hours ago, Gachr said:

Umm...

It is apparently supposed to replace OpenGL.

https://developer.nvidia.com/transitioning-opengl-vulkan

Quote

Especially for people new to graphics, it may be better to use OpenGL or rendering middleware that hides this complexity and focus on the actual task.

So Microsoft state (msdn) that they will keep supporting both DX11 (for hobby developers and indie gamers) and DX12.

OpenGL probably wont get any other update, but that does not mean that you cant use it anymore now.

Since you are working in Java and have no graphics programming experience, I'd recommend not going Vulkan (or DX12) since they are really complex (I have some experience with DX12).

I personally havent worked with DX11, but I have with OpenGL.

The API is fine although DX11 is faster and Microsofts graphics debugging functions build into Visual Studio are amazing.

 

If you want to build cross platform games go with OpenGL, but do realize that you cant use the latest features (macOS/OS X support up to OpenGL 4.1 and Linux requires closed source drivers (not really a problem if you ask me)).

 

If you want to learn OpenGL with Java, you could have a look at these youtube video's, its how I learned OpenGL:

 

[DiamondShark286]

thank you to everyone that answered I will stick with opengl for now

[Mira Yurizaki]

One of the things that Vulkan appears to do is that it requires the developers to manage more resources now, when before the API would do this.

 

This is probably not a good thing for someone just starting out to do. I'd argue this is probably why C is a problem for a lot of people. For example in C, you have to manage your application's memory. If you request memory but forget to free it, you'll have memory leaks. More modern languages will automatically reap that memory.