[kasool]

To elaborate on this, Vulkan is an open _standard_ whose many implementations (user mode driver) may or may not be open source. Vulkan is just a header file, it's up to the various independent hardware vendors (IHVs) to implement it for their platform.

Also a small correction: Vulkan actually _does_ run Apple platforms (via Vulkan-to-Metal translation) using MoltenVK and the new KosmicKrisp driver, and it works quite well.

[jsheard]

> Vulkan is an open _standard_

That too kinda depends on where you draw the line, the spec text is freely available but all development happens behind closed doors under strict NDA. From an outsiders perspective it doesn't feel very open to get completely stonewalled by Khronos on the status of a feature that debuted in DirectX or CUDA well over a year ago, they won't even confirm whether it's on their roadmap.

[kasool]

Sure, that's true and a pretty valid criticism of the system.

My definition of open is that Khronos doesn't restrict (as far as I know) what platforms Vulkan can be implemented on. The same cannot be said for DX12 or Metal.

[franga2000]

DirectX 12 headers seem to now be published under the MIT license, so I don't see a real difference from a "who is allowed to implement it" perspective.

[LoganDark]

> Also a small correction: Vulkan actually _does_ run Apple platforms (via Vulkan-to-Metal translation) using MoltenVK and the new KosmicKrisp driver, and it works quite well.

I think, since they mentioned some enterprise deployments on Windows won't have Vulkan drivers preinstalled, that drivers merely being available is not enough for GP to count them as Vulkan "running". I think GP is only counting platforms (and circumstances) where you can reasonably expect Vulkan support to already be present.

[kasool]

Fair enough! In my humble opinion those specific circumstances outlined are a bit overly-pedantic for the target audience of this article and for general practical purposes. The average Windows user can reasonably expect that they'll be able to write a Vulkan application without much fuss ( until you run into the driver bugs of course ;) ).

[3836293648]

Vulkan also runs on Apple Silicon without translation on linux

[Rohansi]

It actually requires translation everywhere. GPUs have their own internal API that Vulkan, OpenGL, DirectX, etc. translate into. That is what drivers do.

[3836293648]

That's being disingenuous. Of course a high level api has to be implemented in terms of hardware specifics, but you're implying, hopefully unintentionally, that that hardware interface is Metal, and it's not.

You can run Vulkan on Apple Silicon as natively as you can run Metal, even if some parts of it don't map too nicely to the hardware.

We only seriously say translate when we go from one high level API to another, just like we call some compilers transpilers even though literally everything is a compiler for something.

[socalgal2]

If you're going to claim MoltenVk = Vulkan on Mac then you might as well claim Wine / Proton = DirectX on Linux.

[kasool]

Not really! The difference is MoltenVK (and now KosmicKrisp) is officially supported and funded by Khronos itself.

DXVK, vkd3d on the other hand is propped up by dozens of passionate open-source contributors.

I'm drawing my lines not based on technicalities, but on the reality of the situation when it comes to how much the "controlling entity" of each API cares about supporting your platforms. And the fact is, Khronos has put time and money into supporting more platforms than Microsoft has.