Vulkan Will Support Multiple GPUs Only in Windows 10

tetris42 said:
Yeah, because mobile users are known for spending $60 on new games with lots of depth and gameplay to them and not mostly one-off casual games with the occasional whale spending way too much on microtransactions...

I don't see it happening. They're different markets. This reminds me of the prophecies a few years back how tablets were going to overtake the PC and it would become irrelevant. In the future, everyone will do productivity work on their tablet. Yes, the mobile market is huge and will certainly siphon off some sales, but I just do not see them becoming the first and foremost for development of multi-million games as a whole.
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The Nintendo Switch is a first step. Release a mobile with an included dock that can connect to a monitor, not an optional dock. Optional components just don't sell. I remember in 2003 John Romero made a statement about how mobile was the future. Everyone thought he was crazy, especially since he was the person who made Daikatana, and at the time, mobile was those Pocket PCs. His timing was just off, as mobiles tend to be about 10 years behind in technology, but that doesn't mean he was wrong.

And it's not about PCs dying. It's about a transition. There will always be a market for PCs (at least in the foreseeable future), but that doesn't necessarily mean it will be for us. A decade ago, what would have been today's PC Master Race laughed at people who owned laptops for gaming. Now it's accepted. Mobiles don't have to be as good as a PC, they just need to be good enough. The real question comes down to how does a developer make money on a platform, be it PC or mobile. If mobile becomes more lucrative, you better believe developers will target that as their main platform. After all, 20 years ago, a full size PC game was considered the norm, with free map packs, etc. DLC was introduced, people fought against it, and now it's accepted, and free content updates are dying for the most part. Microtransactions start, and people complain about it being exploitive towards the consumer, and now it's the business model for many games, including games which aren't on mobile platforms.
 
tetris42 said:
Yeah, because mobile users are known for spending $60 on new games with lots of depth and gameplay to them and not mostly one-off casual games with the occasional whale spending way too much on microtransactions...

I don't see it happening. They're different markets. This reminds me of the prophecies a few years back how tablets were going to overtake the PC and it would become irrelevant. In the future, everyone will do productivity work on their tablet. Yes, the mobile market is huge and will certainly siphon off some sales, but I just do not see them becoming the first and foremost for development of multi-million games as a whole.
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I think you'd be surprised what people are willing to spend on a "mobile" game.

Quality game's don't always have to be crazy good looking graphics and 80 hours of game play (some AAA game look horrible too: the new Mass Effect for example).

Square-Enix has proven that people will happily pay $15-20 for a game on mobile and that is for ports of OLD games that can easily be found elsewhere for free and play perfectly on the mobile device. For example, Final Fantasy III, $15.99 and has sold somewhere between 100,000 and 500,000 copies.

We've also seen how people will happily dump far more than $60 into a game. Pokemon and Clash of Clans are prime examples of this. Games like that aren't just a "whale spending way too much on microtransactions".
So I definitely see some developers making high quality games that are cross platform including mobile and enjoying the benefits of being cross platform. Even if they only sell a small number of mobile it's still more money in their pocket than if they ignored it. This is why an open API that is cross platform is such a good thing for developers.
 
Nytegard said:
The Nintendo Switch is a first step. Release a mobile with an included dock that can connect to a monitor, not an optional dock. Optional components just don't sell. I remember in 2003 John Romero made a statement about how mobile was the future. Everyone thought he was crazy, especially since he was the person who made Daikatana, and at the time, mobile was those Pocket PCs. His timing was just off, as mobiles tend to be about 10 years behind in technology, but that doesn't mean he was wrong.

And it's not about PCs dying. It's about a transition. There will always be a market for PCs (at least in the foreseeable future), but that doesn't necessarily mean it will be for us. A decade ago, what would have been today's PC Master Race laughed at people who owned laptops for gaming. Now it's accepted. Mobiles don't have to be as good as a PC, they just need to be good enough. The real question comes down to how does a developer make money on a platform, be it PC or mobile. If mobile becomes more lucrative, you better believe developers will target that as their main platform. After all, 20 years ago, a full size PC game was considered the norm, with free map packs, etc. DLC was introduced, people fought against it, and now it's accepted, and free content updates are dying for the most part. Microtransactions start, and people complain about it being exploitive towards the consumer, and now it's the business model for many games, including games which aren't on mobile platforms.
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I think the Nintendo switch may even have a chilling effect. I don't see it being a runaway success, since they're using a more limited processor and more importantly, have different hardware compatibility, so porting 3rd party games is still going to be a hassle. Games that run on Xbox, PS4, and PC the switch may not be able to hack.

The thing is, it's not just about the hardware, form factor is important too. I don't see games like counter strike and MMOs being remotely enjoyable on mobile. Now it's possible far off enough in the future you could have mobile devices powerful enough that you just simply plug them into a docked station, then it's as good as a desktop, but we're not there yet and dedicated game hardware is going to remain dominant for AAA titles for a long time now.
 
Vermillion said:
I think you'd be surprised what people are willing to spend on a "mobile" game.

Quality game's don't always have to be crazy good looking graphics and 80 hours of game play (some AAA game look horrible too: the new Mass Effect for example).

Square-Enix has proven that people will happily pay $15-20 for a game on mobile and that is for ports of OLD games that can easily be found elsewhere for free and play perfectly on the mobile device. For example, Final Fantasy III, $15.99 and has sold somewhere between 100,000 and 500,000 copies.

We've also seen how people will happily dump far more than $60 into a game. Pokemon and Clash of Clans are prime examples of this. Games like that aren't just a "whale spending way too much on microtransactions".
So I definitely see some developers making high quality games that are cross platform including mobile and enjoying the benefits of being cross platform. Even if they only sell a small number of mobile it's still more money in their pocket than if they ignored it. This is why an open API that is cross platform is such a good thing for developers.
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I'm not saying some of this stuff won't come to mobile, I'm challenging the assertion that future AAA games are going to be developed for mobile first and foremost. And I'm not sure why you think Pokemon and Clash of Clans are NOT examples of the low-depth games that make their money burning people on microtransactions.
 
Nytegard said:
A decade ago, what would have been today's PC Master Race laughed at people who owned laptops for gaming. Now it's accepted.
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And a decade ago the idea that $700 GPUs sellout easily might have been as hard to believe. I game now and then on a laptop with older games, you don't need a lot of horsepower for a lot games these days. And a lot of the gaming laptops are packing some serious hardware with serious price tags, more than I paid for this sig rig.

Nytegard said:
Mobiles don't have to be as good as a PC, they just need to be good enough.
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Good enough isn't what drives PC gaming, it's top end hardware that people can't get enough of that trickles down, wash, rinse, repeat. Mobile gaming is already bigger than PC gaming, but just not the same market.
 
BulletDust said:
Furthermore, conventional DX11 and SLI is still supported of which DX12 and mGPU offers no real game changing advantage....
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well to be fair SLI means Nvidia, Nvidia cannot do DX12 to its fullest cause it does NOT have the hardware and software layers to make it happen and this also bodes same for Vulkan, and when it comes to mGPU considering how Nv wants everything under THEIR lock and key as well as essentially breaking support for SLI on all but their highest end products meaning the things that mean the most money, they dont want nor care if mGPU works well or at all unless THEY are in full control of it period.

I had read about this before, if it takes software to do the abstraction layer or whatever for mGPU in Vulkan/DX12 to happen, can be sure as shit they will do everything in their power to prevent it, cause it means folks can take a bunch of "cheap" to get as good if not superior than their high margin products. Just to use a basic example PhysX, no reason for it be locked down as it is, but it is, Gsync, same no reason for it be locked away the way Ngreedia does it besides to ensure profit is as high as they can make it and no one can put fingers in it to maybe make it superior far better used then current.

Anyways, mGPU via DX10 or Vulkan requires the code to make it happen one way or another, would much prefer not having to be locked in a crappy OS that you have to screw with to make as user freindly as Win7 is in many many ways, 10 is junk for ways MSFT could have easily not done, they dont care :mad:
 
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I don't know why anyone cares, mGPU support sucks nowadays. I have xfire turned off in games more often than turned on due to lack of support. Only the AAA titles get it lately it seems, even then it's not 100% artifact free sometimes.
 
HeavensCloud said:
I don't know why anyone cares, mGPU support sucks nowadays. I have xfire turned off in games more often than turned on due to lack of support. Only the AAA titles get it lately it seems, even then it's not 100% artifact free sometimes.
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I can't agree more with this comment.
 
Well boys, yet another circlejerk for naught, as Khronos clarifies that Vulkan mGPU is not actually limited to Windows 10. Windows 7, 8.1 and Linux users can rest easy, nevermind the industry shift away from multi-GPU overall.
https://www.khronos.org/blog/vulkan-multi-gpu-support-not-just-for-windows-10
The good news is that the Vulkan multi-GPU specification is very definitely NOT tied to Windows 10. It is possible to implement the Vulkan multi-GPU extension on any desktop OS including Windows 7, 8.X and 10 and Linux.

Some of the Khronos GDC presentations mentioned that for Vulkan multi-GPU functionality, Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) must be in Linked Display Adapter (LDA) mode. That was not a very clear statement that has caused some confusion. And so it is worth clarifying that:
  1. The use of WDDM is referring to the use of Vulkan multi-GPU functionality on Windows. On other OS, WDDM is not necessary to implement the Vulkan multi-GPU extension.
  2. On Windows, the use of LDA mode can make implementing Vulkan multi-GPU functionality easier, and will probably be used by most implementations, but it is not strictly necessary.
  3. If an implementation on Windows does decide to use LDA mode, it is NOT tied to Windows 10. LDA mode has been available on many versions of Windows, including Windows 7 and 8.X.
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