Direct X 12 or Vulkan

[realSpoderman]

I'm building a gaming rig and want to know if I should use Direct X 12 or Vulkan, and yes my OS will be Windows 10. I've heard some good stuff about Vulkan and my friend uses it but I don't know how are they better or worse when compared. With everything I hear I want to know which is better or which one is better for me.

[Godlygamer23]

You can't necessarily choose what you're going to be using as games may only support one or the other. 

[realSpoderman]

2 minutes ago, MaxBunny said:

[removed]

Can you have both? I thought you could only use one.

Edited November 11, 2016 by Godlygamer23
Removed quoted post.

[Godlygamer23]

2 minutes ago, realSpoderman said:

Can you have both? I thought you could only use one.

You can use both depending on what the game supports. You can't use both actively at the same time though.

[Delicieuxz]

Vulkan and DX12 both accomplish the same low-level communication between hardware and software, to achieve increased performance in a game, if implemented well. Vulkan is open-sourced, whereas DX12 is proprietary, belonging to Microsoft. Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10 support Vulkan. Windows 10 supports DirectX 12 and Vulkan.

 

If a developer adds one to their game, they are likely not going to also add the other, because it would take more resources and be redundant.

 

Your choice of which to use will likely be decided for you, by the developer including only one of them in a particular game.

[realSpoderman]

Just now, Delicieuxz said:

Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10 support Vulkan. Windows 10 supports DirectX 12 and Vulkan.

 

If a developer adds one to their game, they are likely not going to also add the other, because it would take more resources and be redundant.

But that could help them get their game to more people, and I heard that its not too bad to make it for Vulkan and then put it to DX12

[Delicieuxz]

3 minutes ago, realSpoderman said:

But that could help them get their game to more people, and I heard that its not too bad to make it for Vulkan and then put it to DX12

So far, we have some decent implementations of both DX12 and Vulkan, and also some bad implementations of DX12. There have been no games which feature both Vulkan and DX12, as far as I'm aware. It also doesn't really make sense for a developer to include both in a game.

 

If a game was made for Vulkan, then there would likely be no point in making it for DX12, since Vulkan would already do what DX12 does, and on the same OS - so, it wouldn't be getting the game to more people to add DX12 support to a Vulkan game.

 

And in the reverse situation, if a developer was concerned about getting their game to more people, then it wouldn't make sense for them to go with DX12 in the first place, since Vulkan gets the game to everyone that DX12 does, and a whole lot more, as well.

 

Only for Xbox 1 purposes might a developer want to make a game for DX12, if it was already available for Vulkan. But I don't think DX12 gains a lot of performance for the Xb1, over non DX12.

[Tech Inquisition]

Is this for real?

[MaxBunny]

26 minutes ago, Tech Inquisition said:

Is this for real?

Apparently, and enough for my post to get removed baselessly by an overzealous mod.

[Humbug]

windows 10 supports both.

it's a choice that the game devs have to worry about, not you.

 

If in future a game supports both APIs then the choice between them for the player depends on the quality of that individual implementation. I.e. In the game in question which API works better in terms of performance and bugginess. Use that criteria rather than having a blanket rule. Which works better will depend on the quality of the implementation. Cause conceptually both APIs are similar. Don't listen to fanboy statements claiming either one sucks while the other is awesome.

 

this is leaving aside the ideological reasons which make most people want to see vulkan succeed ahead of dx12

 

[leelaa14]

So far I've seen vulkan give better performance than DX12. Though I've only see one game use vulkan and that's doom.
DX12 seems shit to be honest.
Gives marginally better if not worse performance.

[typographie]

16 hours ago, realSpoderman said:

Can you have both? I thought you could only use one.

As others have undoubtedly said by now, the game you are playing will run with the API(s) it was designed to use. Your PC is compatible with a wide range of graphics APIs, including both DirectX 12 and Vulkan and many other versions dating back many years.

 

It's not unheard of for games to offer a choice between two APIs in the options menu. Usually that's DirectX 11 or DirectX 12 in most such games right now. Doom gives you the choice between DX11 and Vulkan. In all of those cases, the best option will depend on the game and your hardware. For instance, Battlefield 1's DX12 implementation appears to be a noob trap… I don't think it runs better for anybody, and actually seems to hurt performance for some. Vulkan in Doom seems to vary between good and amazing depending on your video card. You just have to find benchmarks, ask around, and/or try it for yourself.