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Vulcan API Support In Studio One ( For less graphic latency and cpu overhead & cross platform support and development )

+5 votes
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asked Jan 20, 2017 in Hardware Integration / Remote Control by scottmoncrieff (1,060 points)

My thoughts..regarding Presonus Studio One.

The main key advantages I would imagine that would benefit Studio One are the redrawing and displaying of elements such as meters, the graphical spectrum / waterfall displays to be more fluid at higher resolutions, greatly reduced graphical lag in big projects such as with scaling / zooming of the display and at higher resolutions, particularly on future lower / mid range graphics, and significantly less interruption of CPU processing cycles that are better used elsewhere. And on the flip side, cross platform support to the Linux operating system and development of software to be usable with Android devices. The possibility of adapting / developing new visual tools or systems which are cross transferable to Studio One through the Vulkan API.

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Developers of the Vulcan API website

From Wikipedia

Vulkan is intended to provide a variety of advantages over other APIs as well as its spiritual predecessor, OpenGL. Vulkan offers lower overhead, more direct control over the GPU, and lower CPU usage.Intended advantages include:

  • Vulkan API is well suited for high-end graphics cards as well as for graphics solutions present on mobile devices (OpenGL has a specific subset for mobile devices called OpenGL ES; it's still an alternative API in Vulkan supporting devices).
  • In contrast to DirectX 12, Vulkan is available on multiple modern operating systems; like OpenGL, the Vulkan API is not locked to a single OS or device form factor. As of release, Vulkan runs on Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, Tizen, Linux, and Android (third party support for iOS and macOS is also available)
  • Reduced driver overhead, reducing CPU workloads.
  • Reduced load on CPUs through the use of batching, leaving the CPU free to do additional computation or rendering than otherwise.[24]
  • Better scaling on multi-core CPUs. Direct3D 11 and OpenGL 4 were initially designed for use with single-core CPUs and only received augmentation to be executed on multi-cores. Even when application developers use the augmentations, the API regularly do not scale well on multi-cores.[25]
  • OpenGL uses the high-level language GLSL for writing shaders which forces each OpenGL driver to implement its own compiler for GLSL that executes at application runtime to translate the program's shaders into the GPU's machine code. Vulkan drivers are supposed to ingest instead shaders already translated into an intermediate binary format called SPIR-V (Standard Portable Intermediate Representation), analogous to the binary format that HLSL shaders are compiled into in Direct3D. By allowing shader pre-compilation, application initialization speed is improved and a larger variety of shaders can be used per scene. A Vulkan driver only needs to do GPU specific optimization and code generation, resulting in easier driver maintenance, and smaller driver packages in theory (as GPU vendors still have to include OpenGL/CL).
  • Unified management of compute kernels and graphical shaders, eliminating the need to use a separate compute API in conjunction with a graphics API.

Like OpenGL, Vulkan targets high-performance realtime 3D graphics applications such as videogames and interactive media across all platforms, and offers higher performance and lower CPU usage, much like Direct3D 12 and Mantle. Vulkan also has the ability to render 2D graphics applications, however it is generally suited for 3D. In addition to its lower CPU usage, Vulkan is also able to better distribute work amongst multiple CPU cores

Nvidia's blog

What Is Vulkan?

Vulkan is a low level API that gives direct access of the GPU to developers who want the ultimate in control. With a simpler, thinner driver, Vulkan has less latency and overhead than traditional OpenGL or Direct3D. Vulkan also has efficient multi-threading capabilities so that multi-core CPUs can keep the graphics pipeline loaded, enabling a new level of performance on existing hardware.

Vulkan is the first new generation, low-level API that is cross platform. This allows developers to create applications for a variety of PC, mobile and embedded devices using diverse operating systems. Like OpenGL, Vulkan is an open, royalty-free standard available for any platform to adopt. For developers who prefer to remain on OpenGL or OpenGL ES, NVIDIA will continue to drive innovations on those traditional APIs too.

  • For professional application developers using Quadro: Our Vulkan and OpenGL drivers use an integrated binary architecture that enables the use of GLSL shaders in Vulkan. Developers also have the flexibility to continue using OpenGL or plan a smooth transition from OpenGL to Vulkan to take advantage of Vulkan’s new capabilities. For example, Vulkan’s multi-threaded architecture can enable multiple CPU cores to prepare massive amounts of data for the GPU faster than before. For design and digital content creation applications, this means enhanced interactivity with large models.

1 Answer

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answered Jan 20, 2017 by AlexTinsley (925,070 points)

Thank you for the feature request. 

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