Comment by flohofwoe
19 hours ago
Out of the modern non-console 3D APIs (Metal, D3D12, Vulkan), Vulkan is arguably the worst because it simply continued the Khronos tradition of letting GPU vendors contribute random extensions which then may or may not be promoted to the core API, lacking any sort of design vision or focus beyond the Mantle starting point.
Competition for 3D APIs is more important than ever (e.g. Vulkan has already started 'borrowing' a couple of ideas from other APIs - for instance VK_KHR_dynamic_rendering (e.g. the 'render-pass-object-removal') looks a lot like Metal's transient render pass system, just adapter to a non-OOP C API).
It sounds like maybe Khronos should handle 3D APIs like they do with slang[1] and just host someone else's API such as Diligent Engine or BGFX and then let them govern it's development.
[1]: https://shader-slang.org/
Just like with Mantle, Slang came to Khronos, because after they stated they would not be doing any further GLSL development, and it was up to the community to keep using HLSL or do something else themselves, a year later NVidia decided to contribute the Slang project.
You can read about DX12 being worse here: https://themaister.net/blog/2021/11/
But that's not even the point. Everyone could collaborate on the common API and make it better. Where were Apple and MS? Chasing their NIHs instead of doing it, so you argument is missing the point. It's not about how good it is (and it is good enough, though improving it is always welcome), it's about it being the only collaborative and shared effort. Everything else is simply irrelevant in result even if it could be better in some ways.
Seeing what a clusterf#ck OpenGL 3 and 4 were (and Vulkan ended up being), and how Direct3D 11 is probably the most usable 3D API right now, both Apple and Microsoft were absolutely right to chase their own APIs. If not for competition from Metal and D3D12, Vulkan would still be forcing render passes and static pipelines.
No, they were absolutely wrong. It's like saying it was wrong for the Web to have common standards and everyone should be using ActiveX, Flash, Silverlight and who knows what else. That argument is complete fallacy. It's really good that the Web managed to get rid of those. But I'm sure lock-in proponents will never get tired for arguing that NIH is "the right way to go".
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They were having fun with Sony and Nintendo.