Next Generation OpenGL Becomes Vulkan: Additional Details Released
Continuing this week's GDC-2015 fueled blitz of graphics API news releases, we have Khronos, the industry consortium behind OpenGL, OpenCL, and other cross-platform compute and graphics APIs. Back in August of 2014 Khronos unveiled their own foray into low-level graphics APIs, announcing the Next Generation OpenGL Initiative (glNext). Designed around similar goals as Mantle, DirectX 12, and Metal, glNext would bring a low-level graphics API to the Khronos ecosystem, and in the process making it the first low-level cross-platform API. 2014's unveiling was a call for participation, and now at GDC Khronos is announcing additional details on the API.
First and foremost glNext has a name: Vulkan. In creating the API Khronos has made a clean break from OpenGL – something that game industry developers have wanted to do since OpenGL 3 was in development – and as a result they are also making a clean break on the name as well so that it's clear to users and developers alike that this is not OpenGL. Making Vulkan distinct from OpenGL is actually more important than it would appear at first glance, as not only does Vulkan not bring with it the compatibility baggage of the complete history of OpenGL, but like other low-level APIs it will also have a higher skill requirement than high-level OpenGL.
Khronos unveils Vulkan: OpenGL built for modern systems
Coming later this year, the new API promises efficiency and performance.