Today marks the official launch of The Khronos Group’s cross-platform open graphics API Vulkan, as the 1.0 spec is now available to developers for free alongside a suite of complementary drivers and SDKs supplied by Group members.
The Khronos Group, of course, is that consortium of companies and schools responsible for maintaining open standard APIs like OpenGL and OpenCL. It first named Vulkan as its OpenGL successor almost a year ago (and has been working on it for roughly 18 months) but today’s debut of Vulkan 1.0 is a big deal because it means developers at large can now begin implementing the graphics tech in their own games and projects.
Croteam seems to be a leading example, as the studio has patched beta support for Vulkan into its 2014 game The Talos Principle.
“We’re only scratching the surface of what can be done with it,” Croteam’s Dean Sekulic stated in a press release announcing Vulkan’s launch. “Porting The Talos Principle to Vulkan should be seen as a proof of concept.”
Developers looking for more details on Vulkan, as well as links to Vulkan-ready drivers and SDKs from hardware and software manufacturers, check out the Vulkan website or The Khronos Group’s Github repos.