Star Citizen to go Vulkan exclusively





The Star Citizen developer has confirmed that the game will be ditching support for DirectX entirely going forward in favour of the Vulkan graphics renderer API.
DirectX 12 and Vulkan are low-level graphics APIs that, if used correctly, can utilize the GPU much more effectively than previous iterations of DirectX and OpenGL. This leads to better frame rates and lower CPU usage in games.
"Years ago we stated our intention to support DX12, but since the introduction of Vulkan which has the same feature set and performance advantages this seemed a much more logical rendering API to use as it doesn't force our users to upgrade to Windows 10 and opens the door for a single graphics API that could be used on all Windows 7, 8, 10 & Linux. As a result our current intention is to only support Vulkan and eventually drop support for DX11 as this shouldn't effect any of our backers. DX12 would only be considered if we found it gave us a specific and substantial advantage over Vulkan. The API's really aren't that different though, 95% of the work for these APIs is to change the paradigm of the rendering pipeline, which is the same for both APIs."
Brown doesn't dismiss the possibility of DirectX 12 support for Star Citizen in the future. As he puts it, "DX12 would only be considered if we found it gave us a specific and substantial advantage over Vulkan". He also mentioned that the two APIs "really aren't that different".
The full Star Citizen will still be in alpha for quite a while, but the official website says Squadron 42, Star Citizen's single-player component, is due out later this year.
Star Citizen Trailer Shows the MISC Prospector - 02/20/2017 06:36 AM
Cloud Imperium Games released a new trailer of its upcoming space simulator Star Citizen. The trailer features the MISC Prospector, which is a popular mining craft within the universe of the game. Eve...
Star Citizen New Procedural Planets v2 Trailer - 10/14/2016 08:58 AM
Roberts Space Industries website now offers Procedural Planets v2, a new version of this trailer from Star Citizen running at 60 frames-per-second....
New Star Citizen screenshots look pretty amazing - 10/12/2016 09:03 AM
Cloud Imperium has released a new set of screenshots for Star Citizen, showcasing its latest build....
Star Citizen atmospheric flight video - 08/01/2016 08:28 AM
Cloud Imperium has released a new video, showcasing Star Citizen's new atmospheric flight system. ...
Star Citizen backer gets his $3000 pledge refunded - 07/18/2016 09:15 AM
It was already written about how a recent change in Star Citizen's Terms of Service (ToS) has made it more difficult for backers to request a refund. It turns out there is still a way to get a refund...
Senior Member
Posts: 6086
Joined: 2010-11-16
That is hillarious!!
So after riding the dx12 hype train all this time, they are dropping it and switching to Vulkan, although they do not support either.

Just for the record, I prefer Vulkan over dx12, and if I had the choice Id like to see more Vulkan games, more than anything,
but this... this is pure PR based on new promises and failing to fulfill the old ones.
Senior Member
Posts: 6867
Joined: 2014-09-27
Don't forget the Mantle port!
Senior Member
Posts: 6086
Joined: 2010-11-16
lol thats right
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13362-Star-Citizen-To-Include-Mantle-Support
Senior Member
Posts: 2977
Joined: 2007-04-12
Vulkan is basically mantle so they kept their word

...sorta
Senior Member
Posts: 1653
Joined: 2015-03-20
switching from dx12 to vulkan or vice versa has a lot less implications than porting between high-level apis
Senior Member
Posts: 10598
Joined: 2011-12-31
Cool. I'd like to see more Vulkan/GL games too.
Senior Member
Posts: 9664
Joined: 2008-08-28
No, not GL just Vulkan.

Senior Member
Posts: 6086
Joined: 2010-11-16
This guy is a super-troll.
In 2015. he said they want to support Unix. I sh1tu not. UNIX!
From my standpoint, we would like to use Dx12 as well as OpenGL Next, Vulkan – we want to support Unix. Our servers run on Unix, so our codebase works on Unix as well as straight Windows, but the problem we have is we don’t have a graphics driver yet
Senior Member
Posts: 10598
Joined: 2011-12-31

Dunno man ... Doom was pretty good. But yeah, Vulkan should be better.
Senior Member
Posts: 909
Joined: 2015-06-11
They should focus on gameplay and make a deadline... /sarcasm
Senior Member
Posts: 6867
Joined: 2014-09-27
Some say that somewhere under the different Star Citizen modules, you can still hear CryEngine scream.
Senior Member
Posts: 1139
Joined: 2007-07-11
So yet another excuse for Robbing Space Industries to not release a finished product, nice!
Senior Member
Posts: 3367
Joined: 2008-04-12
Lets face it guys, this game and it's developers will always be a hype train passenger. Just look at the posts that the folks here have made in which the game has said it will follow this route or go that route and I am willing to bet that each of these claims where made by Roberts at around a time that the specific focus of the promise (e.g Unix implementation) just happened to be gaining a bit of traction within the gaming community.
I am not even going to jump on the bandwagon of claiming this is yet another excuse for why the game will never get a release. I just find it interesting that the development of this game seems to be less around about finding and fixing a goal and then working towards it and more about finding a developing trend within gamers and then making grand all sweeping statements about how SC is going to incorporate it in to the game.
I am assuming that some grand stand statement about VR implementation has been made about this game, probably around a year or so ago when the hype train was setting off for VR and before it came to a screeching halt at 'a load of bullsh*t terminus.'
Senior Member
Posts: 5580
Joined: 2011-10-22
Alot of negativity here for something that is truly awesome.
Senior Member
Posts: 6867
Joined: 2014-09-27
Another partly engine rewrite. yaaaaaaaaaaayy