Although not much news emerged from AMD's big announcement of its new Adrenaline graphics driver suite, one piece that did draw our attention is the drive towards greater support of the Vulkan API. Built on the same low-level technology as the Mantle API that AMD developed and then handed off to the cross-company development organization, the Khronos Group, Vulkan can have a big impact on game performance. Specifically when it comes to draw cells, which equates to the number of units and pretty effects on screen. AMD believes this is going to be of real benefit in 2018.
Why? Because AMD believes many more games are going to begin adopting the API in the years to come.
"Why are we investing in Vulkan, but you’re not seeing games into it? Maybe because we see what’s coming and we think that Vulkan is worth investing in," AMD's Terry Makedon explained (via PCgamesN). "I can’t say what’s coming, I can say that we’re investing in Vulkan. We wouldn’t be investing in something that’s a dead-end road."
If this turns out to be true, AMD's plan to offer much more Vulkan support in its new Adrenaline drivers and with its RX Vega graphics cards could mean that AMD ends up with a nice edge over Nvidia in specific games, which as we've seen in years past, can have a big impact on sales.
Would it sway you?
The games we already know are going to have expanded Vulkan support include the next Far Cry, Star Citizen and Squadron 42 and possibly Metro Exodus. If that's just the tip of the iceberg, 2018 could be a very interesting year for AMD graphics, especially if Volta doesn't turn out to be as impressive as Nvidia's Pascal generation was.
