Yes, we already know for almost two hours. Maybe we're going to create such a backend, but just posting this link is not helpful. Patches are always welcome...
Edit: By the way, the now merged D3D12 backend was created by one guy. So if one of you wants to create such a Vulkan backend, just try it.
For you Android people, this doesn't mean as much as you'd think, even if Dolphin got a Vulkan backend. A lot of devices are CPU limited in the fact that we spend a lot of time in the JIT, and shader compilation. Those will still be huge slowdowns no matter what backend you use.
I can see it doing is fixing graphical errors, assuming OEMs implement Vulkan correctly.
Which is lol
Also, it depends on your OEM updating your device with drivers.
Which is also lol.
A big part of Vulkan's design went into ensuring drivers were simpler so that mobile vendors wouldn't screw them up as badly as OpenGL ES, so less time would be spent fighting driver bugs and more could go into other parts of Android Dolphin. As well as that, there's supposed to be a lower-level shader language than GLSL, too, so if a hypothetical backend were to output that instead, it might well provide some speedup to shader compilation. It would be a nice things to have, basically, and if there was no DirectX 12 backend yet, Vulkan would have been the better one to focus on.
Since the topic in Android was locked (from this thread already existing) before I could link this to it...
https://developer.nvidia.com/vulkan-android
The Vulkan developer preview for Shield Android TV is already available if anyone wanted to check it out.
(02-17-2016, 03:27 AM)AnyOldName3 Wrote: [ -> ]As well as that, there's supposed to be a lower-level shader language than GLSL, too, so if a hypothetical backend were to output that instead, it might well provide some speedup to shader compilation.
I've seen this assumption several times, but no. Shader string generation and string parsing is super fast. Most optimization passes afterwards needs more time. So don't think the shader compilation will speed up magically now...
woo nice. They already have some demo's out.
They one up'ed Microsoft in that regard.
From the way it looks,Vulkan on Android will essentially be the equivalent of the most powerful desktop GL placed on capable Android devices and the benefits are often compared to DX12's improvements over DX11,thus a possibility of exponential graphical improvements and maximized performance excluding the Jit ARM64 recompiler's side.
Shield TV's GPU supports OpenGL 4.5,plus extensions and feature sets of OpenGL 4.5 could be used on it in Android if done with Vulkan.
So if Vulkan is implemented along with being on Android for use with Shield TV,the Jit ARM64 recompiler can only improve that much more since the graphics would be pretty much covered by top notch extension and feature support that's missing from OpenGL ES 3.1's limits.
drivers are huge thing look at the opengl drivers, only nvidia gets it right. Apparently things havent changed so far only nvidia gets vulkan drivers right since they are conformant meanwhile amd who seem to go all in on this cant even get their vulkan drivers up to the same standard as nvidia. i know its early but i hope this trend doesnt continue the way opengl went.
The ShieldTV official OTA is rolling out,now if a Vulkan backend is made,it can be used on it since some users reported performance issues on the developer update compared to Lollipop.
Edit: The JitARM64 performance build runs just fine on the OTA 3.0 update. Wonder just what is wrong in the master builds?