Vulkan support?

[Carlos1010]

Hi all,

So whenever I watch a RX 480 video vs a GTX 1060 they always say that the RX 480 is better because it has vulkan support. Does anyone know what this is? Thanks in advanced!

[Skiiwee29]

2 minutes ago, Carlos1010 said:

Hi all,

So whenever I watch a RX 480 video vs a GTX 1060 they always say that the RX 480 is better because it has vulkan support. Does anyone know what this is? Thanks in advanced!

Both cards support Vulkan. Vulkan is the successor to OpenGL. The RX480 just performs marginally better when running games using the Vulkan API like Doom, but still does not outperform the 1060. 

[Guest]

Do people say this? It is wrong. Vulkan is basically the next version of OpenGL. Drivers for Vulkan are not fully implemented yet and older graphics cards will eventually be able to use Vulkan as the drivers are released.

[Carlos1010]

3 minutes ago, legacy99 said:

Both cards support Vulkan. Vulkan is the successor to OpenGL. The RX480 just performs marginally better when running games using the Vulkan API like Doom, but still does not outperform the 1060. 

What is openGL? Also thanks for your response! 

[AresKrieger]

What they are likely talking about how the 480 gets a bump due to vulkan being based on mantle, though the 480 isn't actually better even with this advantage, compare the cards performance numbers not BS people tell you beyond that

[Skiiwee29]

Just now, Carlos1010 said:

What is openGL? Also thanks for your response! 

Its a API that tells the games how to use the resources of the graphics card and CPU, much like Direct X 11 and Direct X 12. 

[Carlos1010]

So is openGL better than directX 12 or is it like a thing on the DirectX 12?

[daniellearmouth]

Just now, Carlos1010 said:

So is openGL better than directX 12 or is it like a thing on the DirectX 12?

OpenGL is oooooold. Then again, so is DirectX.

 

OpenGL's latest iteration - 4.5 - is closer to DirectX 11, rather than 12. DirectX 12 and Vulkan are the direct competitors here.

[Carlos1010]

So is vulkan for AMD GPU's or for all of them and also why do I never hear vulkan API and I always hear about Directx 12? Thanks for your response!

[ivan134]

12 minutes ago, legacy99 said:

Both cards support Vulkan. Vulkan is the successor to OpenGL. The RX480 just performs marginally better when running games using the Vulkan API like Doom, but still does not outperform the 1060. 

Lol @ marginally better.

http://www.golem.de/news/geforce-gtx-1060-vs-radeon-rx-480-das-bringen-direct3d-12-und-vulkan-1607-122214.html

[daniellearmouth]

2 minutes ago, Carlos1010 said:

So is vulkan for AMD GPU's or for all of them and also why do I never hear vulkan API and I always hear about Directx 12? Thanks for your response!

Vulkan and DirectX 12 work across newer AMD and NVIDIA GPUs without a hitch.

 

Performance increases depend, however; sometimes they'll be higher, other times they won't be.

[Carlos1010]

@ivan134 @daniellearmouth

So do graphics cards already come with vulkan or something? How do you know if your graphics card comes with which API or do you have to install the API after you buy the GPU?

[killermenpl]

DirectX works only on Windows and Xbox. It is closed source (meaning that you cannot just look at it's source code).

OpenGL was made as an Open Source (meaning that if you want to you can look at it's source code) alternative that can run on any platform (Windows, Linux, Android etc.), as long as there is GPU support.

Vulcan (and Mantle, which got absorbed into Vulcan) is an upgrade to OpenGL (think Windows 98 to Windows 7 kind of upgrade) that put graphics rendering on it's head by using a lot of technologies unavailable earlier.

DirectX 12 took went the same way as Vulcan and use (mostly) the same kind of technology (like async shaders).

 

Both are available on both Nvidia and AMD GPUs. The difference is that AMD GPUs that use GCN (almost every card since HD 7xxx series) were designed to take advantage of Mantle, and by extension by Vulcan and DirectX12.

[Humbug]

1 minute ago, Carlos1010 said:

@ivan134 @daniellearmouth

So do graphics cards already come with vulkan or something? How do you know if your graphics card comes with which API or do you have to install the API after you buy the GPU?

All new graphics cards support dx12 and Vulkan.

[Carlos1010]

20 minutes ago, Humbug said:

All new graphics cards support dx12 and Vulkan.

And how exactly do  you see if your GPU has vulkan and also are there different versions of vulkan or is it just vulkan 1.0? Also thanks for your response! 

 

[Humbug]

4 minutes ago, Carlos1010 said:

And how exactly do  you see if your GPU has vulkan and also are there different versions of vulkan or is it just vulkan 1.0? Also thanks for your response! 

 

It's just Vulkan 1.0 for now.

Basically any AMD GCN graphics card. That means HD 7xxx or later

And any Nvidia kepler or newer graphics card. That means GTX 6xx or later.

[riklaunim]

There is something called "feature level". Every card has feature level of support for given API.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feature_levels_in_Direct3D

 

nvidia, intel, amd - they all support DX12 and Vulkan API on in general their newer products. There are however some differenced on how much performance is gain on newer DX12 and Vulkan APIs vs DX11 and OpenGL. AMD gains more than Nvidia as AMD GPU architecture fits new APIs most - DX12 and Vulkan were created based on AMD Mantle API and Mantle API was created to showcase more efficient use of (AMD) GPU. It turned out to be really good (for the future) and now every vendor is going that direction. And you can expect that in 2-3 years from now we will see even more revamped GPU designs following current trends (like one big GPU made of few smaller chips instead of one big one).