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Vulkan vs DirectX12? Has there been a consensus on what API is better?

Vulkan or DirectX12?

  • Vulkan

    Votes: 156 74.6%

  • DirectX 12

    Votes: 53 25.4%
  • Total voters
    209
TaySan

TaySan

SayTan
Member
Dec 10, 2018
31,441
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Numerous releases now give you the option to use either API. Has there been a consensus on what API is better? Especially for Ryzen CPUs? I'm playing Zombie Army 4:Dead War and DirectX 12 seems to run much better for me on 4K while Vulkan stutters a lot. DirectX12 was a smooth experience the whole play through. Red Dead both versions seem to run about the same, but i experience crashes on both. :/ Which API do you guys prefer?
 
Dest

Dest

Has seen more 10s than EA ever will
Coward
Jun 4, 2018
14,053
Work
I'm not sure which is technically better, but properly implemented Vulkan is fantastic. See idtech. Doom/Wolfenstein 2
 
Dio

Dio

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,097
on a game to game basis...the one that performs better. in general, the one that runs on any platform, which is vulkan
 
funky

funky

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
8,527
I have never heard of a game running worse under Vulkan.

DX12 on the other hand seems like a crapshoot.
 
Nintendo

Nintendo

Prophet of Regret
Member
Oct 27, 2017
13,383
From a consumer's perspective, both are good. I never noticed a performance difference, but DX12 has more features and compatibility from my experience.
 
elenarie

elenarie

Game Developer
Verified
Jun 10, 2018
9,811
What API is better... What are we talking about here?

Dx12 is natively built in Windows and Xbox and supported by Microsoft to whom you could reach out for random issues, that makes it automatically better even if Vulkan gives you free massages while you write rendering code for it.
 
JaggedSac

JaggedSac

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,988
Burbs of Atlanta
elenarie said:
What API is better... What are we talking about here?

Dx12 is natively built in Windows and Xbox and supported by Microsoft to whom you could reach out for random issues, that makes it automatically better even if Vulkan gives you free massages while you write rendering code for it.
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Lol. So there may be a market for a Vulcan support company to pop up?
 
OP
OP
TaySan

TaySan

SayTan
Member
Dec 10, 2018
31,441
Tulsa, Oklahoma
I'm talking about from a consumer perspective. Real world game performance between the two. I'm not sure which one to choose in games. :/
What's more stable in your experience?
 
Md Ray

Md Ray

Member
Oct 29, 2017
750
Chennai, India
Ryzen 7 3700X/GTX 970, here. Vulkan is better than DX12 in RDR2 for me. Great performance in DOOM, Wolfenstein TNC, etc.
DOOM, in particular, runs amazingly well. Ultra settings, above 1440p resolution on a GTX 970 at 60+fps almost all the time. DX12 was amazing in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, definitely better than DX11.

 
dgrdsv

dgrdsv

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,879
They are very similar technically but Vulkan is cross platform and have an official way of adding vendor extensions for new functionality so my vote goes to Vulkan.
 
liquidmetal14

liquidmetal14

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
2,094
Florida
From my experience, vulkan has shown many more gains than dx12. It's just still not as mature and lacks some things that dx provides but it's still impressive none the less.
 
empo

empo

Member
Jan 27, 2018
3,112
Most cases where I've tried both Vulkan has been marginally faster (Ryzen CPU/Nvidia GPU) but I don't really know what each of them bring.

DX11/12 games though 12 has almost always been a shitshow compared to 11.
 
Md Ray

Md Ray

Member
Oct 29, 2017
750
Chennai, India
liquidmetal14 said:
From my experience, vulkan has shown many more gains than dx12.
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Same here.

empo said:
Most cases where I've tried both Vulkan has been marginally faster (Ryzen CPU/Nvidia GPU) but I don't really know what each of them bring.

DX11/12 games though 12 has almost always been a shitshow compared to 11.
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Exactly this! I couldn't have put it better myself. The only exception was Shadow of the TR which had better performance when using DX12 over DX11.
 
R.T Straker

R.T Straker

Chicken Chaser
Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,715
It's Vulkan.

DX12 when not used by MS's first party ( and even that at start was rough) is trash.
 
Grimminski

Grimminski

Member
Oct 27, 2017
10,130
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Md Ray said:
Same here.



Exactly this! I couldn't have put it better myself. The only exception was Shadow of the TR which had better performance when using DX12 over DX11.
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Rise of the Tomb Raider had a great implementation as well, made the Geothermal Valley playable on my PC. Wish I could see how Rage 2 performed compared to Just Cause 4 (which I think used 12?), but I can't even get it to boot.
 
Vash63

Vash63

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,681
elenarie said:
What API is better... What are we talking about here?

Dx12 is natively built in Windows and Xbox and supported by Microsoft to whom you could reach out for random issues, that makes it automatically better even if Vulkan gives you free massages while you write rendering code for it.
Click to expand...
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Pretty sure all three major driver vendors provide direct support for Vulkan questions and technical assistance (I know Nvidia does), plus there's all the Valve funded tools and LunarG stuff.

liquidmetal14 said:
From my experience, vulkan has shown many more gains than dx12. It's just still not as mature and lacks some things that dx provides but it's still impressive none the less.
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At least in terms of graphical features Vulkan has had the lead on DX12 for quite a while thanks to vendor extensions. It supported VRS (and shipped it in Wolf2) long before Microsoft did, same for ray tracing and mesh shading all via Nvidia extensions. Microsoft still doesn't support mesh shading actually and Vulkan has had it since day 1 on Turing cards.
 
Teeth

Teeth

Member
Nov 4, 2017
3,938
This is like asking a bunch of shoppers at a grocery store which irrigation system makes tastier apples.
 
Grimminski

Grimminski

Member
Oct 27, 2017
10,130
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Md Ray said:
Not necessarily.
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I wasn't monitoring it too closely (because there's no point in me starting at the stats), but I was hitting 99% CPU pretty much all the time. RotTR is like that if I don't boot in DX12.

c0Zm1c said:
Disabling leaderboards fixed that for me.
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Huh. I only played for a few hours during the free weekend in December, if that fixed or even reduced the problem I might have picked it up. Maybe next time.
 
dgrdsv

dgrdsv

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,879
Dezzy said:
Now I'm wondering what the real reason behind most games sticking with DX11 is.
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It is significantly easier to program for DX11.
All these subpar implementations of DX12/VK you see around? These exist mostly because devs are not able to use them properly, not because APIs themselves are somehow "bad".
 
Phil me in

Phil me in

Member
Nov 22, 2018
1,292
It also baffles me how a cpu bound game like stellaris was made in dx9 when dx12 etc was already out
 
elenarie

elenarie

Game Developer
Verified
Jun 10, 2018
9,811
Phil me in said:
It also baffles me how a cpu bound game like stellaris was made in dx9 when dx12 etc was already out
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You have to consider your audience and the ease of work. Since Stellaris is a grand strategy game, it is not hard to imagine that a good portion of its target audience may still be running Win 7 or 8.
Also, Dx12 is much lower level compared to Dx9, so it requires better knowledge of rendering engineering, something that the team may not have had during the development of the game.
 
pksu

pksu

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,240
Finland
Dezzy said:
Now I'm wondering what the real reason behind most games sticking with DX11 is.
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Lower level APIs often require a lot of refactoring for efficient use and especially if the game is simplistic on graphics side it's just not worth it. It's still possible to parallelize a simulation heavy game even when using DX9.
 
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