Unity now supports Vulkan API

[brenan999]

In a recent blog post about Unity's new beta for 5.6 they included notes about Vulkan support.

Quote

What’s in the 5.6 beta?

Support for Vulkan – Take graphical performance to the next level

Vulkan is a new generation graphics and compute API that provides high-efficiency, cross-platform access to modern GPUs on desktop and mobile platforms. It’s designed to take advantage of multiple CPU cores by allowing multiple threads to run in parallel. This means increased speed with reduced driver overhead and CPU workload, leaving the CPU free to do additional computation or rendering. In total, we’ve seen a rendering performance improvement out-of-the box up to 60% using Unity – that is without having to deal with any specifics of the Vulkan API.

This update in Unity is also available for small devs wanting to include the API in their builds. What is also significant is that Cities Skylines is a title using Unity and if Vulkan support is added this could be a major tool for benchmarkers. Many other games that have seen popularity the last couple years also use Unity; Super Hot, Subnautica, Rust, Firewatch, Hand of Fate and Pony Island. With the inclusion in an engine such as Unity the availabilty of Vulkan titles is sure to increase.

 

Sources:

Blog Post

Some of the games made with Unity

[tlink]

wouldn't performance still be pretty bad if it's added on later? i thought api's like that should have support from the ground up for efficiency's sake. great to see an open source API becomming more mainstream tough, if i was an indie game developer i would definitely use it.

[JoseGuya]

This is great news, Unity is getting better and better. 

[sof006]

32 minutes ago, tlink said:

wouldn't performance still be pretty bad if it's added on later? i thought api's like that should have support from the ground up for efficiency's sake. great to see an open source API becomming more mainstream tough, if i was an indie game developer i would definitely use it.

Not quite the same since unity only improves unity. If a game is to add it on at a later stage then the benefits aren't usually there because they're adding it to one game. However Unity is adding global support to its entire engine which will then give everyone else access to Vulkan API if they use Unity to create games with... Its like if EPIC were to add Vulkan support to their Epic Games engine (whatever its called). Or if DICE were to solely add the support to frostbite engine instead of just slapping it on after a game has been released like they did with Battlefield and DX12.

[rattacko123]

8 minutes ago, sof006 said:

-snip-

so basically if the groundwork is already done in the engine, performance improvements will be seen even in games that aren't optimized?

[JoseGuya]

6 minutes ago, rattacko123 said:

so basically if the groundwork is already done in the engine, performance improvements will be seen even in games that aren't optimized?

I guess it would be like Metal support for iOS and Mac, where the optimization happens when the engine translate the C# or UnityScript code to c++, or the intermediate code. 

 

 

[sof006]

6 minutes ago, rattacko123 said:

so basically if the groundwork is already done in the engine, performance improvements will be seen even in games that aren't optimized?

That depends whether the game developers who decided to use Unity in the past decide to use Unity's implementation of Vulkan. Previous Unity titles that were released before Vulkan was available may not get a patch to be updated to support it. If those older games gain the support then obviously they may not experience a great performance improvement since they are older games.

[tlink]

41 minutes ago, sof006 said:

Not quite the same since unity only improves unity. If a game is to add it on at a later stage then the benefits aren't usually there because they're adding it to one game. However Unity is adding global support to its entire engine which will then give everyone else access to Vulkan API if they use Unity to create games with... Its like if EPIC were to add Vulkan support to their Epic Games engine (whatever its called). Or if DICE were to solely add the support to frostbite engine instead of just slapping it on after a game has been released like they did with Battlefield and DX12.

ah yes ofcourse, thanks for explaining  

[JoseGuya]

44 minutes ago, sof006 said:

Not quite the same since unity only improves unity. If a game is to add it on at a later stage then the benefits aren't usually there because they're adding it to one game. However Unity is adding global support to its entire engine which will then give everyone else access to Vulkan API if they use Unity to create games with... Its like if EPIC were to add Vulkan support to their Epic Games engine (whatever its called). Or if DICE were to solely add the support to frostbite engine instead of just slapping it on after a game has been released like they did with Battlefield and DX12.

Unreal Engine is Epic's game engine

[sof006]

1 hour ago, JoseGuya said:

Unreal Engine is Epic's game engine

Thanks I couldn't quite remember what it was called lol

[Agosto]

PUT IT IN KSP NOW

[Okjoek]

I have Verdun and Cities Skylines which uses the Unity engine.

[Misanthrope]

Cities Skylines is a notorious CPU hog, if Unity did a good job it might yield significant advantage with top end processors.

[Guest Kloaked]

On 12/20/2016 at 9:14 AM, sof006 said:

Thanks I couldn't quite remember what it was called lol

It's called Unreal Engine btw. 

 

On 12/20/2016 at 7:30 PM, Misanthrope said:

Cities Skylines is a notorious CPU hog, if Unity did a good job it might yield significant advantage with top end processors.

I wonder if this is Rust's issue as well. That and Garry sucks big fat toes