Vulkan API comes to macOS and iOS – no thanks to Apple

LaptopMedia.com News Vulkan API comes to macOS and iOS - no thanks to Apple

From: Miroslav Bozhkov 27 February 2018 / 09:27 0

The Vulkan API is developed by a company called Khronos Group and it is designed as a cross-platform solution. However, Apple hasn’t adopted the API and the company rather relies on its own Metal API based on OpenGL which translates into gamers missing out on some titles and optimizations.

Now Khronos Group with the help of Valve, LunarG and Brenwill Workshop releases MoltenVK – “a runtime for macOS and iOS that offers an almost complete subset of the Vulkan API implemented using Metal”. What this means is that developers will now be able to bring their games to iOS and macOS with ease. The MoltenVK will reduce the effort it takes for developers to create an all-new Metal API version of their applications.

Applications based on Vulkan will bring high-performance graphics games to iOS and macOS. This is demonstrated by the updated Vulkan version of DOTA 2 by Valve. As you can see from the graph below, Vulkan brings up to 50% performance increase compared to OpenGL.

MoltenVK is bound to increase Vulkan’s implementations and user base. It will also help more titles become available and/or improved on macOS and iOS.

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