[microcolonel]

Windows 8 and older power more than half of Windows PCs, so Direct3D 12 is no more widely deployed than Vulkan.

[pjmlp]

It is, given that Vulkan only has quality drivers on Android 7, currently 0.7%, and GNU/Linux, currently 2% of the desktop market, as per Steam dashboard.

Windows 10 is at around 25% currently.

[vetinari]

However, those Windows 7 and 8 machines with AMD and Nvidia GPUs do support Vulkan.

[pjmlp]

Yes, with these wonderful set of games:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_Vulkan_supp...

Versus these ones:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_DirectX_12_...

[vetinari]

And game availability relates to GPU API support available at the platform... how exactly?

The fact that game studios decide to use one API or another is no factor in evaluating API availability. (Also note how many DX12 games not published by Microsoft are DX12 exclusives - that says something about Microsoft motives, but not about API qualities).

[pjmlp]

> And game availability relates to GPU API support available at the platform... how exactly?

When given the option, professional game developers choose the one that better helps them achieving their goals.

[vetinari]

There's a reason why DX had almost zero adaptation outside games. Maybe it is not that good API, if you need to support your app for a few years too. Games are fire and forget.

[microcolonel]

I'm sure you can see that 2/5 (approaching half) of the Direct3D 12 titles were published by Microsoft themselves.

And actually, by the numbers there are more titles on Vulkan than there are titles not released by Microsoft on D3D12.