Vulkan Graphics API

[Chris]

Now that the game has launched I would love to know are we getting Vulkan Support soon!!

For Windows this would just help the performace more and make the game run better if done right allowing for better GPU scalling aswell of course if done right.

For Linux, the lighting looks horrible theres no foliage and other things just look washed out also OpenGL just is bad for gaming!

And for Mac its just bad.

Please bring Vulkan to ARK!
Also I remember the tweet: https://twitter.com/survivetheark/status/814570207113052164

[Raptor85]

Unreal engine 4 already supports vulkan, just ark is running on an EXTREMELY old version of the engine. (which is why ark also has performance issues and graphics bugs and tons of other ♥♥♥♥ that was fixed ages ago in UE4)

And honestly theres nothing wrong with opengl, not sure how you got that idea, just remember back when ark came out UE4's opengl support was absolutely ♥♥♥♥, it was a halfassed afterthought, the shaders didnt even work right....and they're still on that old ass engine version!

[Chris]

Well I say OpenGL is bad for gaming because in most Game Engines theres missing features when using OpenGL. OpenGL is not bad for all games though Graphically Intensive game can get more benefit from Vulkan.

Also heres a post about going from OpenGL to Vulkan - https://developer.nvidia.com/transitioning-opengl-vulkan

[Acandri]

Vulkan is currently the best API. better than DX12 and not bound to a OS.

but there is an extremely low chance that ARK will see a DX12 version. not to talk about a Vulkan-version.

[Chris]

+Acandri Thats the best part of Vulkan! Not being bound to a OS!!

[Jannikplays]

at least it's running at your machine

[LouSpowells]

Originally posted by Acandri:

but there is an extremely low chance that ARK will see a DX12 version.

*citation needed

[Frostbringer]

Originally posted by LouSpowells:

Originally posted by Acandri:

but there is an extremely low chance that ARK will see a DX12 version.

*citation needed

*Applied Common Sense

[Raptor85]

Originally posted by ElectroTechNerd:

+Acandri Thats the best part of Vulkan! Not being bound to a OS!!

well, neither is opengl, but it should be noted if you haven't written any code using Vulkan yet you do still need to setup the window manager yourself and load OS specific extensions still, the OS specific part of vulkan is neither easier nor harder than GL3.3. You can't really get around writing code for XCB/Windows to create and set up the window properties + catch input without going to a higher level api like SDL, SFML, or GLFW

[Chris]

Well OpenGL is not bound to an OS but its made by the same people who make Vulkan, and they have said that OpenGL was not made for gaming. It was adapted to be used for gaming. Vulkan was made for gaming from the start. Some problems with OpenGL is that it does not have as Low-level access to the hardware your gaming on, Plus games with about the same amount of work on each API Vulkan will normally preform better!

[Chris]

Also if done right it’s easier to port Vulkan game to other OS’s! Making it possable to port to even Nintendo Switch!

[Aoi Blue]

I also want OpenGL 4.x with GLSL 4+ and/or SM5.

Optional support for things like ASTC based texture compression would also be nice.

I really wish someone (maybe Mesa) would add a "shader language based compression" extension where conventional compression can be run through a GLSL routine. This could be used to add new features to old drivers, and workarounds for absent texture compression algorithms.

[havelcøde]

UE4 doesn't have vulkan support yet

[Raptor85]

Originally posted by havelcode:

UE4 doesn't have vulkan support yet

yes it does, all UE4 builds for the past year have vulkan support, only the distributed binaries don't have it turned on. You have to download the UE4 sources from git and recompile it to enable, but there IS official vulkan support included already. To enable it install the official vulkan SDK from lunarg first then rerun GenerateProjectFiles.bat in the UE4 directory, open the SLN is VS, and recompile. It adds a -vulkan flag you can add when launching a ue4 project to launch it in vulkan mode (much like the opengl /directx flags) and a "Vulkan Preview" mode under the launch menu in the editor.

Again though, remember, ark is using a very old build of UE4 so ARK moving to vulkan is non-trivial, it would take months of either backporting ue4 changes into their customized codebase or porting ark's code into a newer build of UE4, neither of which I see happening anytime soon.

[Chris]

Originally posted by Raptor85:

Originally posted by havelcode:

UE4 doesn't have vulkan support yet

yes it does, all UE4 builds for the past year have vulkan support, only the distributed binaries don't have it turned on. You have to download the UE4 sources from git and recompile it to enable, but there IS official vulkan support included already. To enable it install the official vulkan SDK from lunarg first then rerun GenerateProjectFiles.bat in the UE4 directory, open the SLN is VS, and recompile. It adds a -vulkan flag you can add when launching a ue4 project to launch it in vulkan mode (much like the opengl /directx flags) and a "Vulkan Preview" mode under the launch menu in the editor.

Again though, remember, ark is using a very old build of UE4 so ARK moving to vulkan is non-trivial, it would take months of either backporting ue4 changes into their customized codebase or porting ark's code into a newer build of UE4, neither of which I see happening anytime soon.

From people I talked to updating the engine is easier then backporting!

[Jannikplays]

Originally posted by Raptor85:

Again though, remember, ark is using a very old build of UE4 so ARK moving to vulkan is non-trivial, it would take months of either backporting ue4 changes into their customized codebase or porting ark's code into a newer build of UE4, neither of which I see happening anytime soon.

the used UE4 version is 4.5 so it's pretty old