AMD's V-EZ Goes Open Source

DooKey

DooKey

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Several months back AMD announced their V-EZ initiative. V-EZ is a cross-platform wrapper that makes it easier for developers to bridge the gap between standard graphics APIs and Vulkan. AMD says this tool isn't hardware specific and should work on non-AMD hardware. Further, in order to get this out to the world it's gone open source and you can get it on GitHub. With that said, I suspect we'll see some of the indie developers start to use this since it's less complex than going straight to Vulkan. Anything that gets us to a Vulkan world is a-ok with me.
 
Yet another example why AMD is a better company than Nvidia.

AMD keeps open sourcing shit and generating open standards. Nvidia keeps trying to make everything proprietary and lock users in.

I just wish AMD had a product in the high end graphics market. I would love to reward them for being the good guy, but I just can't hit 4k60hz Ultra settings on a Vega...
 
at 5760x1080 144hz. Grabbing a 1070 for 220 is easy now. I would love to buy a vega 56 but they are still insane =[ I love AMD
 
I hope stuff like this is how AMD starts bringing pain to NVidia. Nvidia's NSync and the premium price that puts on monitors versus Freesync should already be a factor, plus the many policies (NDA or the Partner Program) that are anti-consumer that AMD isn't doing.

Granted, I don't believe for a second AMD wouldn't do a lot of this if the roles were reversed, but the only reason Nvidia gets away with it is AMD hasn't been in a position to offer a counter. But every anti-gamer policy Nvidia puts out is just more ammo AMD could use if they were smart. If they can get the price/performance of their cards within the ballpark of Nvidia and show more gamer-friendly and industry-friendly policies, they would have Nvidia on the ropes.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Linux support, yes, but Mac is tricky. Didn't they recently deprecate OpenGL on the Mac in favor of a proprietary Apple 3D API? Does OSX even support Vulcan?
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As far as I know it does. There's a bunch of games moving over to vulkan on osx.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
;)

[I do like that AMD pushes stuff to open source, but I make no excuses for them- they're doing that because that's the only way they'll get any traction at all!]
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How so? How is that the only way when they have a mid range market to cover as well as the console market? There small enough they can be kept afloat with what demography they do have.
 
iNViSiGOD said:
How so? How is that the only way when they have a mid range market to cover as well as the console market? There small enough they can be kept afloat with what demography they do have.
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The console market doesn't count- those APIs, even when based on contemporary desktop APIs or others, are still customized for the hardware by their customers (Sony/Microsoft).

The low-end/mid-range desktop market means that they have no real influence. They're always a generation behind when they release something new.
 
Rockenrooster said:
it would be cool to have a one click "convert to Vulkan" lol
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2gisu4.jpg
https://imgflip.com/memegenerator
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Yet another example why AMD is a better company than Nvidia.

AMD keeps open sourcing shit and generating open standards. Nvidia keeps trying to make everything proprietary and lock users in.

I just wish AMD had a product in the high end graphics market. I would love to reward them for being the good guy, but I just can't hit 4k60hz Ultra settings on a Vega...
Click to expand...

I REALLY don't think it's because they're doing this for you, me, the developers, the children, or anything else. Sure, it's good for everyone, and that's great. I'm not complaining, or even trying to bash them for this. It's obviously a good thing. I don't think it's some altruistic gift to humanity though either. Due to the company that AMD has had to become in recent years, playing the "we're everyone's buddy" card, we see things like this. Like I said, it's good for everyone. However, I don't think it's because they're inherently a better company.

I love what they're doing in CPUs. They're kicking ridiculous ass. However, in GPUs, they're constantly playing catch-up, and if they didn't do things like this, they'd quickly become irrelevant. This is how they are currently competing. And, you know, to their credit, it does work to a degree, and people do see it as good will. Personally, I think if they were in Nvidia's enviable position though, you wouldn't see much of this. You'd see AMD proprietary tech a lot more.
 
iNViSiGOD said:
How so? How is that the only way when they have a mid range market to cover as well as the console market? There small enough they can be kept afloat with what demography they do have.
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Well, there's "keeping afloat" and there is "metioric rise to king". For the GPU space, they actually do need to do things like this. It's good PR, it makes people happy, it creates good will. Those are good things. However, it's not altruism.
 
I think this in conjunction with Valve's recent re-push for Linux gaming, it may actually become quite viable at some point. I would love to see that occur. I don't hate Valve, AMD, Nvidia... I do currently hate Microsoft. Realistically it's going to be a very slow push, and we may never see numbers like 80% catalog works on Linux. However, I am all for it. If I could play all my games on Linux and without too bad a performance hit, I'd jump immediately. At least for my gaming needs. My design tools will probably never make it to Linux. Though some of the open tools like KiCAD are getting more attractive all the time. Maybe some day I could ditch Windows for everything. ***dreams***
 
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Zarathustra[H] said:
I just wish AMD had a product in the high end graphics market. I would love to reward them for being the good guy, but I just can't hit 4k60hz Ultra settings on a Vega...
Click to expand...
I’m just going to keep limping along my 290 until Vega 2....prior to GPP/NDA I probably would’ve gone 1070.

As it is. Eh I’m content enough. Still need to buy DDR4 though to make a bulldozer upgrade happen though.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Yet another example why AMD is a better company than Nvidia.

AMD keeps open sourcing shit and generating open standards. Nvidia keeps trying to make everything proprietary and lock users in.

I just wish AMD had a product in the high end graphics market. I would love to reward them for being the good guy, but I just can't hit 4k60hz Ultra settings on a Vega...
Click to expand...

Don't think for a second that they do it because they are benevolent. Its just that they don't have the resources to do it themselves.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Linux support, yes, but Mac is tricky. Didn't they recently deprecate OpenGL on the Mac in favor of a proprietary Apple 3D API? Does OSX even support Vulcan?
Click to expand...
I see you haven't been keeping up. Steam worked out sending the Vulkan api commands to metal to give Mac's built-in Vulkan support. Quite a neat method.
 
J3RK said:
Never gonna do it without the VEZ on... oh no...
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Now Nvidia just has to release the Green Earrings API and the world of Vulkan will be complete. In a steely sense of course.

Edit: Oops, quoted myself instead of editing... dumb...
 
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