So whatever happened to the whole PGDCE thing?

[phibermon]

yet it has an extremely useful feature - validation layers. if you enable parameter validation layer for example it will tell you every time you pass in an invalid parameter to a function. but it is extremely low level and I am now at about 100 KB of code just to get Vulkan to initialize and start rendering. This is off topic of course, but I have been researching Vulkan for the last 6 months, it is very promising. Bero, has done some amazing work to make Vulkan available for pascal developers here https://github.com/BeRo1985/pasvulkan.

I wasn't aware that Bero was working on it, that's absolutely fantastic news - thanks Dan!

You clearly know more than I do (which is very little so far) these validation layers make coding for Vulkan a far more appealing prospect by the sounds of it however you're a very experienced developer and 100KB of code just for init indicates an awful lot of work and learning will be required to reach the same stage - the potential performance benefits are very tempting. We're really lucky that Bero is working on this and releasing code that we can use - he's a true guru and far more capable than me - hopefully I'll be able to put his work to use in my projects eventually.

I'd be interested in hearing more about your experiences with the API one of the days if you have the time to discuss - it would be useful to put together a small article for prospective pascal Vulkan developers so they know what to expect and can plan accordingly.

Thanks for the heads up!

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EDIT : I just wanted to add for those reading that Vulkan actually is available on Android so that does make it a far more tempting target. Unfortunately however it is not and will not be available on OSX/IOS - such a shame that Apple have got the propitiatory bug (so to speak) - so much extra work for everybody.

Given the time it takes to develop engines, if work on PGDCE should resume? it may pay for us to design with Vulkan in mind - if learning is the main aim of the game? we all have something to learn there.