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Anyone been following the Valve presentations with their new controller, steam machines, VR and their Vulkan API replacing OpenGL?

bhCHIUm.gif
 
Um, Vulkan seems to be coming out of the Khronos group, same as ever other recent release of OpenGL has. I've not come across anything indicating Valve's involvement with it - got a link?
 
Well that's correct but Valve have been working very closely with Khronos and unveiled Open GL Next/Vulkan with Khronos

They also developed a Intel specific GPU utilising Vulkan as technically Vulkan isn't finalised until later this year. Khronos also seems to be heavily based on AMD's mantle which AMD have just officially retired in favour of Vulkan so it does seem like the common link for cross platform computing is Valve's influence. Though clearly Nvidia also benfit by cross platform computing for their ARM GPU's.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Valve-Intel-Vulkan-Driver

http://www.roadtovr.com/valve-presents-glnext-the-future-of-high-performance-graphics-live-blog-10am-pst/
 
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Of course I have to ask this: how likely will this new Vulkan API work onto the Pyra? :D
Not Likely as I've read that it will work on every Device that can do OpenGL and OpenGL ES 3.1 or higher.

AFAIK OMAP5 only supports OpenGL ES 2.1.
 
AFAIK OMAP5 only supports OpenGL ES 2.1.
I wonder if this is a technical limitation of the chip or simply lack of driver support. There's nothing that can solve the former, but enough money can fix the latter.Not that ED has any money to throw at TI or ImgTech to add ES3 support, but it'd at least be a dream.
 
To be clear; Vulkan isn't replacing OpenGL.  OpenGL and OpenGL | ES will continue to evolve in parallel to Vulkan.  I'm pretty excited about getting back to lower-level access to GPUs (albeit in a vendor-neutral way).
 
I'm also not sure all those steam boxes will actually be running Linux. Haven't alienware already tried selling something called a steambox running good old Windross?
 
Make a Bakelyte and brass X86 version of a Pyra and call it a Steam Punk Steam Box?

Although, for some of the oldest games maybe we wouldn't need the actual X86 SoC?  Could someone try the Steam X86 Linux client on a Pyra dev board with the Exagear layer installed?  Maybe dial up some Half Life 1 on it and see how bad the slide show is?
 
Could someone try the Steam X86 Linux client on a Pyra dev board with the Exagear layer installed?  Maybe dial up some Half Life 1 on it and see how bad the slide show is?

There are a few issues I'm having with Debian Jessie and Exagear desktop I need to resolve, mostly dealing with ALSA and sound stuttering... I do still have an older version of armhf Xubuntu with Exagear I can work with, but I need to update the kernel and what not on that build... but that isn't  what we will be using on the Pyra, so it may not be optimal...
 
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OMAP5 already outdated?  :eek:
2 years old already.
Time is fleeting...  :ph34r:  

depends on Ti and the willingness to create a new driver.
Not TI, it's IMGtec, who have pretty much abandoned series 5 GPUs already, so no chance for updated drivers.
They seem fast with abandoning support for relative new hardware. If I compare that with the driver situation for PC's and it's deep downward compatible GPU drivers, it's actualy sad. Why is propper driver support for mobile devices so short living?
 
2 years is considered an eternity in the mobile business.  PYRA's goal is not chasing after the latest and greatest SoC but freedom and openness remember? ;)
 
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They seem fast with abandoning support for relative new hardware. If I compare that with the driver situation for PC's and it's deep downward compatible GPU drivers, it's actualy sad. Why is propper driver support for mobile devices so short living?
That's how mobile world operates - release the device and never update (with some rare exceptions of fixes shortly after release). You may get an update of 1 Android release, but it will still have the same kernel and drivers under the hood. It just became the norm, unfortunately.
 
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Sounds like all they have in mind is selling new smartphones each year. Where is the good old philosophy gone with quality hardware and good support? This does not help to get better software/drivers. Maybe there is some hope with other fields of mobile Computer usage that uses such SoC's like Automobile, Aircraft, Military? These last usualy longer than one year. ^^"
 
If you pay TI and the likes enough money, and sign the right NDAs they'll give you the source for the drivers, and you can then fix things yourself. Won't be able to release the source though, or I suspect even be able to release the binary except preinstalled on a device, but that's what smartphone makers used to do (before smartphones ran linux), and I guess what the military etc. still do.
 
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