We all by now that Valve’s founder and Gabe Newell boss does not of the #Microsoft #monopoly on #gaming and Windows. Calling Windows 8 the worst platform for gaming. And ever since, Valve has been working on building a proper competitor.
the company started to develop and then finally launch SteamOS. The Linux-based operating system that has encouraged studios to release games on Linux. The OS is still fairly new, but has already prompted the launch of almost 2000 native games.
Up to now, Linux has not been recognized as a gaming platform, but development is starting to catch up. Both Windows and DirectX have had their advantage, but the industry is changing. Nvidia, AMD, and Intel have only had real support for DirectX, now the new Vulkan API comes into the mix.
The development of Vulkan has been largely initiated by Valve, and this is apparent in the official announcement. As expected, Gabe Newell made some comments about Windows, although not directly naming the operating system.
“We are extremely pleased at the industry’s rapid execution on the Vulkan API initiative. Due to Vulkan’s cross platform availability, high performance and healthy open source ecosystem, we expect to see rapid uptake by software developers, far exceeding the adoption of similar APIs which are limited to specific operating systems,” said Gabe Newell, co-founder and managing director, Valve.
To top things off, the Vulkan SDK has been made available for Linux and Windows developers.
“LunarG has released the first Vulkan SDK for Windows and Linux concurrently with the Vulkan 1.0 specification. The SDK includes validation layers to ensure proper Vulkan API usage and improve portability across platforms and graphics hardware. Additional layers are available for taking screenshots, tracing API activity, and running other debugging tasks. The LunarG SDK contains sample programs and documentation to help developers accelerate application development. The LunarG SDK for Vulkan is open source and freely available from LunarXchange at vulkan.lunarg.com.”
Now the pressure is on Croteam to bring The Talos Principle to Linux so we can see the Vulkan API in action.
