In these last two years we have been present before the arrival of some high-quality titles to Android. Even on Android consoles focused on gaming, we have been lucky enough to play some games at Portal or one of those video games that might seem to be taken directly from one of the most renowned consoles, although on smartphones and tablets for normal use, it still has that lace so that we are speechless with the graphic spectacle that stands out from the screen.
Vulkan It is the new bet of Google and that follows what is marked with Metal for iOS 8 last year. It is a new 3D rendering API that will allow us to face better graphics and, therefore, better video games. Google knows that one of the biggest uses that is given to a smartphone today is for video games and you only have to look at one of the smartphones of one of our younger cousins to realize this. So Google wants to give Android gaming a twist with the arrival of Vulkan.
Graphics performance
Nor are we going to discover anything new that in order to have good graphics we need good hardware and software that allows us to take advantage of it to the limit. In the PC we have DirectX that gives all the potential to the hardware launched by Nvidia and ATI every few months increasing the graphic quality of certain video games.
This has to be carried over to Android to be able to render beautiful graphic scenes and that we can access all kinds of graphic effects with thousands of particles doing their thing or that lighting that delights us with a panoramic view of a valley while we brandish the sword before the enemy on duty who wants to rip our heads off.
Vulkan has the goal of minimizing CPU usage, which means that graphical instructions can be passed from apps to the phone's GPU very quickly, which increases frame rates and gives developers the freedom to render more complex scenes.
From OpenGL ES
Vulkan comes from Kronos Group, precisely those who were in charge of bringing us Open GL ES in their day, so its platform opens new horizons to Android developers who want to satisfy our needs for good games.
At the moment of Vulkan's landing it won't mean it's the end for OpenGL ES on Android, and both APIs will be supported in the future, although Google's intention is to release a final version sooner than we might expect. For this he is putting all the energy and working hard for its launch, according to what they say from his own blog.
In short, we will have better video games the moment they release a public build and developers put their hands in the dough to publish video games for next year that are distinguished by enhancing the graphics.
If you are a video game developer you can stop by www.khronos.org/vulkan in order to be attentive to releases and news regarding this new API that we hope will bring us new horizons for leisure and video games.