Vulkan Support for RTX Now Shipped

[Sniperfox47]

Just to be clear this is about support in the API and driver, not any specific game. Don't expect to see any RTX enabled Vulkan titles until *at least* November, but likely later.

 

Let's first start with: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Vulkan-1.1.85-Released

 

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Most exciting with Vulkan 1.1.85 is the new VK_NVX_raytracing extension to enable a ray-tracing workflow with Vulkan. 

So this part of the news is pretty simple. The latest version of the Vulkan API added a bunch of Nvidia exclusive Vulkan extensions. The biggest of which is VK_NVX_raytracing which is the basis of a multivendor raytracing API for Vulkan just like DXR is to Direct3D 12.

 

There's a bunch of other vendor specific extensions like the mesh shader extension for taking direct advantage of the Mesh Shader pipeline on Turing and a few other little things for Turing, but the big one is the raytracing API.

 

The other piece of course is: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NVIDIA-410.57-Beta-Released

 

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The highlights for this NVIDIA 410.57 Beta Linux driver include: 

- Support for the GeForce RTX 2080 series is now in place. 

- On the Volta front is support for the Tesla V100-SXM2-16GB-LS, V100-PCIE-16GB-LS, V100-SXM2-32GB-LS, and V100-SXM3-32GB. 

- A graphics API visual indicator, which is an on-screen display rendered over the game/application and shows whether Vulkan or OpenGL is being used for rendering. 

- Support for X RandR transformations on outputs where the NVIDIA driver is used as a synchronized RandR 1.4 output source. 

- Exposing "EGL 1.5" as the version string although the necessary EGL extensions were already supported. 

- Adding the OptiX ray-tracing engine (libnvoptix.so.1) to the driver as well as the Vulkan real-time ray-tracing extensions via VKX_NV_raytracing. The Vulkan ray-tracing also brings new libnvidia-rtcore.so and libnvidia-cbl.so libraries. 

- Experimental support for VK_EXT_global_priority.

 

Which is about the latest Linux beta driver adding support for these extensions as well as bundling the Opti-X library in the driver itself. Curious if RTX relies on Opti-X for some of it's pre-hardware work splitting.

 

On Linux there's now interestingly an in-driver indicator you can use that will overlay applications and show if they're running in OpenGL or Vulkan. Neato.

 

---

 

So it looks like we got day1 support for RTX in Vulkan just like Nvidia hinted a couple months back. This is great to see.

 

Now before people start jumping in to go "yeah well DXR has been around for months now so game devs have had more chance to impliment it!", let's be frank. With the plug-in nature of RTX the time difference really doesn't make a substantial difference, the implimentation on Nvidia's side is going to be a way bigger make or break it than on the game devs. Considering we're not expecting any games to be supporting it on Direct3D 12 in the next month or so, it shouldn't make any substantial difference for Vulkan. There's also the fact that this extension has existed as a draft for quite some time, and this is just the official Kronos release of it, meaning it's very likely major Vulkan devs (read as Bethesda) may have had it in their hands already.

 

While I'm not super hopeful this means we could see RTX for recently released and upcoming Vulkan titles like Quake Champions and DOOM Eternal. I wonder if there's any benefit to seeing demons reflected in pools of their own blood? We'll just have to see what the performance is like and whether any devs feel it's worth it to impliment.

[Guest]

All I'm saying is that if DOOM: Eternal has RTX support, I won't not consider a 2070.

[JuNex03]

48 minutes ago, Leinad4400 said:

All I'm saying is that if DOOM: Eternal has RTX support, I won't not consider a 2070.

Confusing double negative.

 

So you will consider a 2070 then?

[Guest]

38 minutes ago, JuNex03 said:

Confusing double negative.

 

So you will consider a 2070 then?

T'was the point. Yes, I definitely will.

[PlayStation 2]

I read the title as that the RTX cards did not support Vulkan and that support for it was coming out

confusing

[Master Disaster]

Anyone else find it confusing that Nvidia chose to use Vulkan for RTX? Wouldn't that decision seriously limit the potential amount of games we ever see supporting RTX?

 

Nvidia are basically saying if you want your game to support RTX then either use Vulkan or forget about it.

 

[asus killer]

18 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Anyone else find it confusing that Nvidia chose to use Vulkan for RTX? Wouldn't that decision seriously limit the potential amount of games we ever see supporting RTX?

 

Nvidia are basically saying if you want your game to support RTX then either use Vulkan or forget about it.

 

I guess they made a choice. Why noy go with Vulkan. What are your reservations about it?

[JuztBe]

4 hours ago, Leinad4400 said:

T'was the point. Yes, I definitely will.

I'm mostly curiuos about its RTX performance. All the demos so far we seen were using 2008ti on 1008p mostly sub 60fps. It definetly doesn't bring confidence in 2070 rtx performance.

 

[AlTech]

21 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Anyone else find it confusing that Nvidia chose to use Vulkan for RTX? Wouldn't that decision seriously limit the potential amount of games we ever see supporting RTX?

 

Nvidia are basically saying if you want your game to support RTX then either use Vulkan or forget about it.

 

They already support DX12 with RTX. Nvidia practically pushed microsoft into even creating DXR

[Daiyus]

40 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Anyone else find it confusing that Nvidia chose to use Vulkan for RTX? Wouldn't that decision seriously limit the potential amount of games we ever see supporting RTX?

 

Nvidia are basically saying if you want your game to support RTX then either use Vulkan or forget about it.

 

Forgetting the fact that DX12 already supports RayTracing for a minute I actually think it's a good thing to push more developers and publishers into using Vulkan. It's just as good as DX12 and is platform agnostic, which actually makes it better than DX12 in every way.

[Tech Enthusiast]

49 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Anyone else find it confusing that Nvidia chose to use Vulkan for RTX? Wouldn't that decision seriously limit the potential amount of games we ever see supporting RTX?

 

Nvidia are basically saying if you want your game to support RTX then either use Vulkan or forget about it.

 

They are actually supporting directX12 in their own Gameworks Suit and not Vulkan (to be added later according to NVidia).

So i don't see them pushing for one over the other tbh.

[Master Disaster]

29 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

They already support DX12 with RTX. Nvidia practically pushed microsoft into even creating DXR

 

8 minutes ago, Daiyus said:

Forgetting the fact that DX12 already supports RayTracing for a minute I actually think it's a good thing to push more developers and publishers into using Vulkan. It's just as good as DX12 and is platform agnostic, which actually makes it better than DX12 in every way.

Hmmm, in Jayz RTX Video he said that Nvidia are using Vulkan only for Ray Tracing. I guess he was mistaken? Or actually more likely i misheard/misunderstood.

[Tech Enthusiast]

1 minute ago, Master Disaster said:

 

Hmmm, in Jayz RTX Video he said that Nvidia are using Vulkan only for Ray Tracing. I guess he was mistaken? Or actually more likely i misheard/misunderstood.

Jay is mistaken a lot of times. He is a hardware-only guy. He loves OCing and Water when it comes to other topics he is not the source to go to for information.

[Master Disaster]

34 minutes ago, asus killer said:

I guess they made a choice. Why noy go with Vulkan. What are your reservations about it?

Well I think this is irrelevant but I'll answer it anyway.

 

Basically its not DirectX. I know that's a very simple answer but DX is still by far the majority choice for game devs, I feared that limiting RTX technology to only Vulkan would seriously limit the amount of developers wishing to target RTX for their products.

 

Seems like I was wrong though anyway.

[Master Disaster]

4 minutes ago, Tech Enthusiast said:

Jay is mistaken a lot of times. He is a hardware-only guy. He loves OCing and Water when it comes to other topics he is not the source to go to for information.

I thought it was odd that only he mentioned it tbh but as I say, it's possible i misunderstood what he meant.

[Sniperfox47]

16 minutes ago, Daiyus said:

Forgetting the fact that DX12 already supports RayTracing for a minute I actually think it's a good thing to push more developers and publishers into using Vulkan. It's just as good as DX12 and is platform agnostic, which actually makes it better than DX12 in every way.

I just want to point out that while Vulkan has a *lot* of benefits over D3D12 (not just in portability but in terms of actual software design too), it's not better than D3D12 in *every* way and propping it up as being so doesn't help it gain adoption when people actually try to use it.

 

If you want to port a D3D11 game to one of these APIs its way easier to do it to D3D12, if you want to go with a UWP app D3D12 is native while you have to use a Vulkan->D3D converter for Vulkan, if you have a game that uses Stream Output liberally, you're going to have to rearchitect that functionallity since Vulkan doesn't support Stream Output (which is good because it gets used as a crutch to impliment a lot of stuff with terrible performance) and gameworks supports D3D12 with way more features that it does with Vulkan.

 

Some of those benefits are super artificial but they're still there.

[Doobeedoo]

For Doom Eternal I can see RT and HDR support. For Quake Champions not sure since it's MP game only. 

Aside from DX12 neat to see Vulkan getting foused. 

Also, Radeon Rays with Navi launch maybe? 

[Daiyus]

16 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

I just want to point out that while Vulkan has a *lot* of benefits over D3D12 (not just in portability but in terms of actual software design too), it's not better than D3D12 in *every* way and propping it up as being so doesn't help it gain adoption when people actually try to use it.

 

If you want to port a D3D11 game to one of these APIs its way easier to do it to D3D12, if you want to go with a UWP app D3D12 is native while you have to use a Vulkan->D3D converter for Vulkan, if you have a game that uses Stream Output liberally, you're going to have to rearchitect that functionallity since Vulkan doesn't support Stream Output (which is good because it gets used as a crutch to impliment a lot of stuff with terrible performance) and gameworks supports D3D12 with way more features that it does with Vulkan.

 

Some of those benefits are super artificial but they're still there.

Fair enough. I probably should have said "for the end user" as I don't know much about the practicalities of using these API's in development. Thank you for explaining some of the intricacies that I wasn't aware of.

[BuckGup]

6 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

Anyone else find it confusing that Nvidia chose to use Vulkan for RTX? Wouldn't that decision seriously limit the potential amount of games we ever see supporting RTX?

 

Nvidia are basically saying if you want your game to support RTX then either use Vulkan or forget about it.

 

No this is a good thing since Vulkan runs on MacOS, windows, Linux, Android, and IOS. It also is much better than DX12 an OpenGL

[Sniperfox47]

7 minutes ago, BuckGup said:

No this is a good thing since Vulkan runs on MacOS, windows, Linux, Android, and IOS. It also is much better than DX12 an OpenGL

Umm what?

 

Vulkan doesn't Run on MacOS or iOS. Metal and OpenGL/OpenGLES only. You can use MoltenVK to convert Vulkan code to run on top of Metal, but need to use a limited subset of Vulkan and can't leverage Vulkan features like this raytracing extension.

 

It's also not really *much* better than DX12. Better than OpenGL absolutely since OpenGL is a developer nightmare. Better than DX11, arguably since DX11 is slightly easier to develop for. But as mentioned above DX12 does trade benefits with Vulkan, and their performance is ideally pretty close. Neither has a really big leg up over the other.

[cj09beira]

20 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Umm what?

 

Vulkan doesn't Run on MacOS or iOS. Metal and OpenGL/OpenGLES only. You can use MoltenVK to convert Vulkan code to run on top of Metal, but need to use a limited subset of Vulkan and can't leverage Vulkan features like this raytracing extension.

 

It's also not really *much* better than DX12. Better than OpenGL absolutely since OpenGL is a developer nightmare. Better than DX11, arguably since DX11 is slightly easier to develop for. But as mentioned above DX12 does trade benefits with Vulkan, and their performance is ideally pretty close. Neither has a really big leg up over the other.

vulkan supports some sort of middle-ware of devs with less time too, i dont know if dx12 supports something similar 

[pas008]

6 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

They already support DX12 with RTX. Nvidia practically pushed microsoft into even creating DXR

thought nvidia and amd cock blocked intel on rt

https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/135788-investigating-ray-tracing-the-next-big-thing-in-gaming-graphics

 

and both worked with microsoft on dxr

https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/matthew-wilson/microsoft-amd-and-nvidia-are-all-working-on-new-ray-tracing-gpu-tech/

[Humbug]

7 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

Anyone else find it confusing that Nvidia chose to use Vulkan for RTX?

As indicated in later posts I think Nvidia is covering their bases.

 

They are making sure the functionality is there on both DX12 and Vulkan. So that they can approach more game developers... They also have more influence over the direction of Vulkan, than they do for DX12.

[Humbug]

13 hours ago, Leinad4400 said:

All I'm saying is that if DOOM: Eternal has RTX support, I won't not consider a 2070.

I guess if there is any game that will allow an RTX 2070 to achieve 1080p 60fps with ray tracing on, it will probably be this running on vulkan.

[Humbug]

One thing I noticed on the Volta reviews is that the idtech engine, being an excellent Vulkan implementation which is well multithreaded, uses async compute etc really allows Volta to shine above Pascal, and scale to very good framerates without hitting a CPU wall.

 

This is fantastic 4K performance.

 

 

And even at 1080p the scaling past Pascal.

 

That is just great scaling, a testament to the hardware, the game engine, the use of it (implementation), and the graphics API + drivers.