Vulkan

This article is about the graphics software API. For other uses, see Vulkan (disambiguation).

Vulkan
Original author(s)AMD, DICE (original Mantle design)
Developer(s)Khronos Group (donated and derived variant, as Vulkan)
Initial releaseFebruary 16, 2016; 8 years ago (2016-02-16)[1]
Stable release
1.3.301[2] Edit this on Wikidata / 2 November 2024
Repository
Written inC[3]
Operating systemAndroid, Linux, Haiku, Fuchsia, BSD Unix,[4] QNX,[5] Windows, Nintendo Switch,[6][7][8] Stadia, Tizen,[9][10] Raspberry Pi,[11] vxWorks,[12]HarmonyOS, OpenHarmony
Type3D graphics and compute API[13]
LicenseApache License 2.0 and MIT[14]
Websitevulkan.org

Vulkan is a low-level, low-overhead cross-platform API and open standard for 3D graphics and computing.[15][16][17] It was intended to address the shortcomings of OpenGL, and allow developers more control over the GPU. It is designed to support a wide variety of GPUs, CPUs and operating systems, and it is also designed to work with modern multi-core CPUs.

  1. ^ "Khronos Releases Vulkan 1.0 Specification". Khronos.org. Khronos Group Press Release. February 16, 2016. Archived from the original on October 20, 2021.
  2. ^ "v1.3.301". November 2, 2024. Retrieved November 2, 2024.
  3. ^ "KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Docs". GitHub. October 10, 2021. Archived from the original on October 20, 2021.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Vulkan on FreeBSD was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Vulkan on QNX was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference NintendoSwitch1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference NintendoSwitch2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference NintendoSwitch3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference Tizen1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference Tizen2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference Vulkan on Raspberry Pi was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference Vulkan on vxWorks was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference More on Vulkan was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ "Vulkan-Headers/LICENSE.md at main · KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Headers". Retrieved January 3, 2023 – via GitHub.
  15. ^ "Vulkan". NVIDIA Developer. December 2, 2015. Archived from the original on October 20, 2021. Retrieved July 8, 2021.
  16. ^ "Vulkan®". GPUOpen. Archived from the original on October 20, 2021. Retrieved July 8, 2021.
  17. ^ "Developing 3D Graphics with Vulkan on Mobile". Qualcomm Developer Network. Archived from the original on October 20, 2021. Retrieved July 8, 2021.