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0 pointspjmlp1mo ago0 comments

I did not do such claim.

WebGPU on Android runs on top of Vulkan.

If you knew about 3D programming on Android, you would know that there are ongoing efforts to have only Vulkan, with OpenGL ES on top.

However Java and Kotlin devs refuse to bother with the NDK for Vulkan, and keep reaching for OpenGL ES instead.

Please refer to Google talks on Vulkanised conferences.

0 comments

flohofwoe1mo ago

> ...efforts to have only Vulkan, with OpenGL ES on top...

Ok this made me laugh given that Vulkan support on Android is so bad that WebGPU needs a fallback mode to GLES ;)

https://github.com/gpuweb/gpuweb/issues/4266

pjmlpOP1mo ago

Agreed, which is Google's motivation for doing that.

The argument being that if Android only does Vulkan, that OEMs will be forced to care about their drivers.

There are talks done by Google on this, either Vulkanised, Google IO, or GDC, can't remember now the exact one.

torginus1mo ago

Is it possible to support OpenGL on top of Vulkan well? It has been pointed out that Vulkan requires you to completely freeze and compile a graphics pipeline before using it, while OpenGL's state machine is more flexible, and the underlying hardware is somewhat more amenable to these state transitions at runtime, than the Vulkan API would suggest.

Don't these compatibility layers run into issues with constant pipeline recompilation related performance issues, when emulating OpenGL?

pjmlpOP1mo ago

It is no different from running DirectX on Vulkan, DirectX or Vulkan on Metal.

It works, kind of.

Hendrikto1mo ago

> Vulkan requires you to completely freeze and compile a graphics pipeline before using it

It used to be like that but it is no longer true.

mirsadm1mo ago

Vulkan is awful to work with and the drivers are buggy. Google's own phones are the worst for it. I have an app with a compute only vulkan pipeline and on the Google Pixel 10 the whole screen becomes corrupted with some fairly basic shaders.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointspjmlp1mo ago0 comments

I did not do such claim.

WebGPU on Android runs on top of Vulkan.

If you knew about 3D programming on Android, you would know that there are ongoing efforts to have only Vulkan, with OpenGL ES on top.

However Java and Kotlin devs refuse to bother with the NDK for Vulkan, and keep reaching for OpenGL ES instead.

Please refer to Google talks on Vulkanised conferences.

0 comments

flohofwoe1mo ago

> ...efforts to have only Vulkan, with OpenGL ES on top...

Ok this made me laugh given that Vulkan support on Android is so bad that WebGPU needs a fallback mode to GLES ;)

https://github.com/gpuweb/gpuweb/issues/4266

pjmlpOP1mo ago

Agreed, which is Google's motivation for doing that.

The argument being that if Android only does Vulkan, that OEMs will be forced to care about their drivers.

There are talks done by Google on this, either Vulkanised, Google IO, or GDC, can't remember now the exact one.

torginus1mo ago

Don't these compatibility layers run into issues with constant pipeline recompilation related performance issues, when emulating OpenGL?

pjmlpOP1mo ago

It is no different from running DirectX on Vulkan, DirectX or Vulkan on Metal.

It works, kind of.

Hendrikto1mo ago

> Vulkan requires you to completely freeze and compile a graphics pipeline before using it

It used to be like that but it is no longer true.

mirsadm1mo ago

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse