Vulkan API with PCSX2?

[miseryguts]

I've been using The WiiU/Gamecube emulator Dolphin for quite some time now & have had generally pretty good results despite my aging system..
I've recently tried a new dev build that includes the Vulkan API & my systems performance/compatibility has dramatically improved with it, I'm now getting full speed on pretty much everything I've tried so far (Wii & GC) with hardly any issues (the very occasional crash/visual glitch) and most of the time I can increase the resolution to x4/5 (depending on the game) & apply AA and various other graphical effects that vastly improve the visuals.

I suspect it's significantly more complicated but I have to ask, would the Vulkan API improve PCSX2, & how easy or not/likely would it's implementation be in future builds be & if not why?

Apologies if what I'm asking is particularly obvious, but I've still lot's to learn about emulation.

[JMC47]

1: I'm happy to see someone linking to the correct site out in the wild.

2: If you have AMD graphics card, then yeah, Vulkan will improve performance. If you're on NVIDIA, OpenGL performance and Vulkan performance on the driver level is pretty close.

On the other hand, it really depends on how you're slow. Vulkan won't help with CPU emulation slowdown, where as it will help a lot with VERY SPECIFIC types of GPU emulation. Vulkan and OpenGL are identical in performance for me except in extreme cases of games abusing things, like Twilight Princess' minimap. I assume the same would be true in PCSX2.

If they made a Vulkan backend you probably wouldn't see a huge difference unless you have an AMD graphics card.

[FaithLV]

http://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-So-Dolphi...#pid507880

https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2/issues/1047

I doubt it's happening any time soon.

[refraction]

If they made a Vulkan backend you probably wouldn't see a huge difference unless you have an AMD graphics card.

Pretty much this. The new API's like Vulkan and DX12 require a huge amount of draw calls to make a difference, I believe (tell me if I'm wrong here) that the GC and Wii both have quite a lot of draw calls happening, so Vulkan does provide some measurable speed boost for Dolphin, however PCSX2 even on the most demanding games is no more than about 10,000 draw calls, which when they are optimised to improve cases where there are hundreds of thousands, or millions of draw calls, you are going to see little impact beyond getting around AMD's crummy OpenGL driver

[FlatOut]

Pretty much this.  The new API's like Vulkan and DX12 require a huge amount of draw calls to make a difference, I believe (tell me if I'm wrong here) that the GC and Wii both have quite a lot of draw calls happening, so Vulkan does provide some measurable speed boost for Dolphin, however PCSX2 even on the most demanding games is no more than about 10,000 draw calls, which when they are optimised to improve cases where there are hundreds of thousands, or millions of draw calls, you are going to see little impact beyond getting around AMD's crummy OpenGL driver

Jak 3 disagrees.

[refraction]

Jak 3 disagrees.

How may drawcalls does that do?

[FlatOut]

How may drawcalls does that do?

15000+ at times(60K+ in the catacombs, but there's an issue there).

[refraction]

yeah an extra 5000 is pretty meaningless, as I say it's optimised for hundreds of thousands and millions of drawcalls, adding 5000 is going to make diddly squat difference

The 60k could be legit for short periods of time, unlikely but it could be

[FaithLV]

*shudders*

[gregory]

@FlatOut
Well not all draw calls are equal. Besides, it is with accurate blending on ?

@FaithLv
You can't directly compare Dx and OGL renderer. I made different trade-off (slower but more accurate). Impact on AMD is bigger because the driver is bad. There are openGL extension that could greatly speedup the emulation (of accurate blending/date).

https://www.opengl.org/registry/specs/AR...erlock.txt

Eventually a Vulkan port will be done but it isn't the first priority.