If you don't know what this means, the article describes it, but OpenGL is the API that Minecraft currently uses for rendering. It stopped receiving updates long ago, meaning it lacks capabilities or benefits, but also support, particularly with MacOS. OpenGL was a bit of a dead end road with a looming end in sight, so a change was going to be needed sooner or later.
Vulkan is another rendering API, and you can think of it as a spiritual successor of sorts (but not a direct descendant or continuation of) to OpenGL. There are a number of things it can do more efficiently, and it can allow for more improvements, such as ray tracing (which OpenGL can do, but not at all in an optimized way since it basically brute forces it instead of taking advantage of hardware dedicated for the task) and HDR, but can also bring performance benefits. Some of those things won't matter much to vanilla rendering, but they will for shaders, including Vibrant Visuals. They want to continue to support as many operating systems (Windows, Linux, and MacOS) as possible, hence Vulkan.
I believe Vulkan is a lower level API like DirectX 12 (as opposed to OpenGL, especially earlier OpenGL, and earlier DirectX versions which were higher level and thus better for lower effort development), meaning it has more potential, but it also takes more effort to get right. Simply switching to it isn't an instant improvement button. When games were transitioning between DirectX 11 and 12 years ago, the latter seemed like a lateral or even worse at first, but many of those games were developed for DirectX 11 first and then had the latter "tacked on". Once games were made for the latter, improvements came. So it's possible the transition period may be rocky here. Hopefully it eventually leads to improvements. I think the game has been getting better, but certain mods (Sodium and C2ME come to mind) show that vanilla still has room for improvement in some departments.
If you're wondering what this change means for you if you're simply a player like me, not much outside of two things.
The first is that your (video) hardware will need to support Vulkan. This isn't dissimilar to the various times the OpenGL version requirements increased. Meaning, it should only effect you if you have something that is very old and currently unsupported, because hardware within the last decade, give or take, should support Vulkan. Minecraft will no doubt be putting out a list of supported video hardware before the change, probably coinciding with a much needed update to the hardware requirements (the listed memory requirements are... ambitious to say the least, especially under Windows).
The second is that it will affect the modding community, particularly mods involved with rendering or shaders, so if you use those, you may notice changes or delays in those sorts of things. (I wonder if OptiFine will straight up cease to carry on after this change?) Modders will eventually adapt though, but if you use one of these mods, be patient with them in the meantime. I mean, that should be a given regardless of changes like this.
The expected time frame for the initial rollout seems to be around summer (26.2.x snapshots?), and the transition will happen in steps where both renderers coexist for a while. I imagine that around a year or two out from now, we'll probably be in a Vulkan era.
I'm intrigued, will see when it happens, how they go about it, how well things turn out.
I'm just as excited about some other claims I've come across, such as how they might be planning to improve the world generation and chunk rendering performance in the Java version (which is currently one of the Java version's greatest performance bottlenecks) or even native LOD support? I'm not sure if either of those are true, but the first one alone would allow for play at even higher render distances than currently, for the same reason it does in Bedrock. (You may still need reasonably performant hardware for that, which is also the case with Bedrock.)
Something else I just realized is that if Mojang is making such a change, it signifies they are committed to the Java version for the foreseeable future. They wouldn't be making such substantial changes if they were going to discontinue it.
This change will also require a lot of work to many mods, so some may rebrand and others may cease development. I wonder if 1.20.1 and 1.21.4 in particular will go down as versions similar to 1.7.10, 1.12.2, and 1.16.5 as popular modded destinations.
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"'Tis foolishness! If all were so easy, why, none would suffer in this world!"
For sure (now that have more time to comment/think about it and mess up what I mean), I'm not aware/intelligent enough to know for sure how it actually works, my coding skills are so primitive after all. XD I'm a mod advertiser/wiki editor after all. XD
it effecting modern versions for sure, it effecting more then that I would wonder? Mojang wouldn't go that far? I'd assume it wouldn't and would just be modern versions.
Though whatever of servers too. But that's a different factor or shouldn't matter? I don't know I'd say anything with dramatic change is worth considering but again some things may not and I'm just assuming with each possibilities then the reality I have no understanding of.
But from what I remember of the game rendering. and what I saw from the Boundary Break video showing the player camera view and more, me testing the render distance (and trying to understand simulation distance).
I have no idea how that actually is calculated, and all the technical of it, but it's a fair visual representation at least. Besides those who make their own mods/are way more aware and able to break that stuff down.
I hope they get LOD or other performance worked out. However the world gen algorithms/calculations are. I don't know enough how Bedrock differs but either way it would be still exciting.
I will say to me I've never been disappointed in how Minecraft works out player defeats or teleports (to existing locations), in terms of general new world gen sure that I can see reason in.
But even other games I go hmm when it comes to them and new generation or reloading old ones and all the things around them empty spaces just environment/objects, or further with NPCs and more crowded of objects and such that it makes sense.
That's fair, I'd say it does it better then most games do HDD or SSD with fast travel or defeats and how they reload all the time (or how much it pulls from the session or world files and so on) I assume games don't just generate.
Or I assume Minecraft and how much it has the original state of the world and the player altered/eliminated block changes to factor it keeps track of.
Those devs probably have their reasons in other games and whatever lack of optimization or other factors, let alone how Mojang does per update and the scale the game is really in comparison being vastly different.
But even still with how much is in RAM, CPU, caches and more I do question it sometimes how much the system has to transport players, work out all the NPCs and objects in any linear or open world game, compared to how much voxels and others cost or just in general the algorithms being tightly designed.
You can tell my comparisons aren't necessary and I'm just spouting nonsense but I'm also not intelligent enough to understand how it all works or what to construct on the topic, so I'm saying whatever I can as I do find this stuff fascinating if I can't really say much on the matter.
I myself don't care much for render distance, but I get the appeal with higher ones, I just got used to lower distances regardless of hardware and just work with whatever I need to really.
That and it will be impressive how much performance we get, what distances, what way the generation of objects, animations, players, altered parts of the world and more calculate in Vulkan compared to OpenGL.
However much they differ as I've no idea.
Even using emulation I have not properly tested or noticed enough, but that's also just because I'm not really tweaking the games with mods that maybe offer those settings or whatever as they are pre made games of course this way and whatever the distances, fog, etc. is going on that's visible.
Obviously with a game on PC offering such settings you really do notice the difference when tweaking each detail.
Minecraft is the one game where because I can scale it that easily (not played enough PC games either really so that's also on me how common the setting is too, what it's called, etc. how much can be scaled or is suitable for each person's hardware and not just mods for such a thing in other games).
The one game I use it, when others are set to what they are, I go yeah I can see why, or how much fog is intentional for atmosphere or setting a scene and when others are done for hiding details, besides other methods over the years/current era of doing so for such set pieces or terrain change or whatever else to render, introduce, etc.
I guess so. If they make it a good basis for sure and really get it going well. But who knows with the initial change we will have to see.
Well many mods or modloaders changes have very much left modders on older versions or 'adapted'/offered solutions to aid in things, or given up or moved to other modloaders (whatever features/environment comforts or effective methods not offered they preferred to use) so anything is possible due to Mojang's decisions. Whether they offer easy adapting methods who knows, we will have to see.
I mean how with Datapacks go still? Many mods do go for the datapack format of course as that aided things for sure, but how much will change for more particular mods scale, objects, tweaks, logic and so on who knows.
I don't know what mods are even using Vulkan if there even are, I bet some may have considered it and would love to use it, not just a case of other games. That or what versions it's being worked against as the other factor.
I can speculate anything and have no clue, whether other languages and solutions for things when they have preferences of Kotlin or anything else they choose to, or other graphics, physics, animations and more things mods can, and how much altering the game or not framework they have to fit into that I have no understanding about at all. XD
it effecting modern versions for sure, it effecting more then that I would wonder? Mojang wouldn't go that far? I'd assume it wouldn't and would just be modern versions.
Yes, this will only affect versions going forward. It won't retroactively change anything with current versions.
Also, this is only going to affect Java, not Bedrock. Bedrock currently uses DirectX 12 (older versions used DirectX 11 and the current version may still have such a fallback) and that won't change. Since I said it's switching from OpenGL, that may have been able to be inferred, but for those who don't know, I'll edit the first post to add that this change will only affect Java.
Though whatever of servers too. But that's a different factor or shouldn't matter?
From what I understand, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the change to the rendering API itself should really only affect the client and not so much the server. However, there may be changes made to the game (and internal server workings) as a result of this rendering change.
So it might be a case of "directly, no, but indirectly, maybe" I guess?
I don't know what mods are even using Vulkan if there even are, I bet some may have considered it and would love to use it, not just a case of other games. That or what versions it's being worked against as the other factor.
There are some mods that use it, such as this one. Needless to say, such mods are limited in number, and compatibility with other mods is low.
"Note: A graphics card with up-to-date drivers supporting at least OpenGL 4.1 is required. Future versions of Hytale may additionally require support for Vulkan 1.3 and DirectX 12."
The graphics card generations Hytale is referencing seem to be around the point where Vulkan support began, which also lines up. Either way, Hytale is likely also already looking to move away from OpenGL. I imagine the only reason it launched using it in the first place is because of how they went back to earlier builds after re-obtaining the project, and it was probably originally made with that all those years ago.
OpenGL doesn't really have a great future, especially not for a game that you want to keep developing and have it be as accessible as possible, which is why I opened the thread with a "it was a matter of when, not if". Vulkan is more or less the better, spiritual successor to OpenGL so it was the choice I would have expected.
The industry has been moving towards low level APIs (like Vulkan and DirectX 12) because of their advantages. One of Vulkan's in particular is lower CPU overhead, which I imagine could be important for Minecraft since it is almost always limited from further performance by the CPU (and RAM) more than anything else. For a similar reason, this might even disproportionately (if slightly) benefit users of Intel (graphics, not CPUs) and nVidia because their video drivers can have a higher CPU performance cost overhead (thus, older or slower CPUs are more affected by this).
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"'Tis foolishness! If all were so easy, why, none would suffer in this world!"
what will happen if the hardware is unsupported will they add like a toggelable options to choose b/w open gl and vulkan like they said they will do in snapshots
OpenGL will remain in the interim, but that's only going to be for a short while (perhaps only during snapshots) and eventually OpenGL will be dropped because they're not going to maintain two separate branches. While they haven't made any formal announcements in regards to changes in hardware requirements yet, anything that doesn't support Vulkan will not be able to function with it, so I would expect such hardware would no longer be supported by the game after that point.
I would expect updated requirements to be announced eventually (again, the memory requirements of Java haven't been realistic in the first place unless they're listing only what the game needs, but that's an atypical way to do it, and most stuff lists what the system needs), and I would expect for them to be similar to what Hytale requires for graphics hardware, which is Maxwell+ on nVidia side (GeForce 900 series, perhaps including 750/745 whether they list it or not because those are Maxwell but if it needs second generation Maxwell, they won't be supported), GCN 4.0+ on AMD (Radeon RX 400 series), and probably around HD 6x0 on Intel. Sometimes you can get better support under Linux because the hardware may be capable, but nVidia/AMD/Intel didn't update drivers for old stuff whereas the Linux community may have.
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"'Tis foolishness! If all were so easy, why, none would suffer in this world!"
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26.2 Snapshot 1 Came out today, and I had to know the performance impact if better or worse on the Mac (most people do have a 'PC' or Windows-based device).
They are using Vulkan 1.2 with the translation layer for it being MoltenVK, which is a fairly decent way to do things. Also fancy transparency is now supported through Vulkan on macOS (it was not before).
The game runs like OpenGL did in 26.1 Minecraft on macOS.
Minecraft under Vulkan (MoltenVK) runs as follows in the Overworld with some Jungle biomes and other heavy biomes nearby and normal terrain generation:
Apple Silicon (M1-M2 standard variants, no pro or max):
~180-200 fps on lower settings (14+ chunks, all particles, fancy lighting, fancy transparency) and ~80-100% GPU usage.
Of course this is vanilla with no shaders, no high-res texture packs, and no mods.
If anyone wants to comment on this, feel free to. I think that this performance with Vulkan(ish) is acceptable for servers and singleplayer worlds, since it did not make the game run worse (and through a translation layer, no less).
How does that compare to OpenGL in 26.2? You say that Vulkan in 26.2 performs similar to OpenGL in 26.1, but does OpenGL in 26.2 perform the same as it does in 26.1?
Seeing your post mention that Vulkan is available in snapshots, I decided to try it. I use a Windows system, but I'm a sample size of one. Others should try for themselves. On my system and at the settings I'm using (see below), I'm seeing around half the average frame rate in Vulkan as opposed to OpenGL once chunks are loaded in and looking level with the horizon.
This is Vulkan.
This is OpenGL.
These are using different seeds so this isn't a strictly controlled test, but I tried both in a few seeds and the disparity that the above examples demonstrate is representative.
These are the settings I used for both, with one non-impactful exception mentioned below.
One difference from the pictured settings is that I had to use exclusive fullscreen mode for OpenGL, but not for Vulkan. I did test both renders in both modes, and there wasn't a frame rate difference. The reason for this discrepancy is because when I tried to record while using OpenGL, I wasn't getting a produced recording for whatever reason, but I did if I used exclusive fullscreen mode. If I try to record very old versions, such as 1.6, I also get no recording produced (despite them using exclusive fullscreen mode). Versions 1.8 and above do produce one. This may be down to my capture settings with Adrenalin, or some other Windows behavior, more than anything else.
The higher half of the render distance range is where vanilla traditionally performs poorly, but there's still a disparity between the two renderers. GPU use is very low with Vulkan which would seem to imply the rendering limitation is oddly CPU-side?
I tried changing a few settings, such as filtering and other things, to see if any particular setting was dragging down Vulkan performance but not OpenGL, but nothing seemed to make a difference there.
I'm also using older, but not very old, drivers from late last year.
All of this is to say that my results apply to my hardware, drivers, and settings only, and may not apply to everyone. This is also on a snapshot version and without performance mods. I wouldn't read into this too much as a sign it will be worse for everyone under all conditions. Still, there is a reduced frame rate under Vulkan for me so far. The Silver lining might be that vanilla performs more smoothly at such a render distance compared to before, regardless of the average frame rate differences here.
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"'Tis foolishness! If all were so easy, why, none would suffer in this world!"
Edit: This only pertains to Java. Bedrock currently uses DirectX 12 and I believe that isn't changing.
I figured this change was a matter of when, not if, but it was a nice surprise all the same.
https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/article/another-step-towards-vibrant-visuals-for-java-edition
If you don't know what this means, the article describes it, but OpenGL is the API that Minecraft currently uses for rendering. It stopped receiving updates long ago, meaning it lacks capabilities or benefits, but also support, particularly with MacOS. OpenGL was a bit of a dead end road with a looming end in sight, so a change was going to be needed sooner or later.
Vulkan is another rendering API, and you can think of it as a spiritual successor of sorts (but not a direct descendant or continuation of) to OpenGL. There are a number of things it can do more efficiently, and it can allow for more improvements, such as ray tracing (which OpenGL can do, but not at all in an optimized way since it basically brute forces it instead of taking advantage of hardware dedicated for the task) and HDR, but can also bring performance benefits. Some of those things won't matter much to vanilla rendering, but they will for shaders, including Vibrant Visuals. They want to continue to support as many operating systems (Windows, Linux, and MacOS) as possible, hence Vulkan.
I believe Vulkan is a lower level API like DirectX 12 (as opposed to OpenGL, especially earlier OpenGL, and earlier DirectX versions which were higher level and thus better for lower effort development), meaning it has more potential, but it also takes more effort to get right. Simply switching to it isn't an instant improvement button. When games were transitioning between DirectX 11 and 12 years ago, the latter seemed like a lateral or even worse at first, but many of those games were developed for DirectX 11 first and then had the latter "tacked on". Once games were made for the latter, improvements came. So it's possible the transition period may be rocky here. Hopefully it eventually leads to improvements. I think the game has been getting better, but certain mods (Sodium and C2ME come to mind) show that vanilla still has room for improvement in some departments.
If you're wondering what this change means for you if you're simply a player like me, not much outside of two things.
The first is that your (video) hardware will need to support Vulkan. This isn't dissimilar to the various times the OpenGL version requirements increased. Meaning, it should only effect you if you have something that is very old and currently unsupported, because hardware within the last decade, give or take, should support Vulkan. Minecraft will no doubt be putting out a list of supported video hardware before the change, probably coinciding with a much needed update to the hardware requirements (the listed memory requirements are... ambitious to say the least, especially under Windows).
The second is that it will affect the modding community, particularly mods involved with rendering or shaders, so if you use those, you may notice changes or delays in those sorts of things. (I wonder if OptiFine will straight up cease to carry on after this change?) Modders will eventually adapt though, but if you use one of these mods, be patient with them in the meantime. I mean, that should be a given regardless of changes like this.
The expected time frame for the initial rollout seems to be around summer (26.2.x snapshots?), and the transition will happen in steps where both renderers coexist for a while. I imagine that around a year or two out from now, we'll probably be in a Vulkan era.
"'Tis foolishness! If all were so easy, why, none would suffer in this world!"
If you're having performance concerns with Minecraft, I hope this may prove useful.
A retrospective of the most important game to me (or, a try to stay awake while I never stop talking about something challenge).
I'm intrigued, will see when it happens, how they go about it, how well things turn out.
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I'm just as excited about some other claims I've come across, such as how they might be planning to improve the world generation and chunk rendering performance in the Java version (which is currently one of the Java version's greatest performance bottlenecks) or even native LOD support? I'm not sure if either of those are true, but the first one alone would allow for play at even higher render distances than currently, for the same reason it does in Bedrock. (You may still need reasonably performant hardware for that, which is also the case with Bedrock.)
Something else I just realized is that if Mojang is making such a change, it signifies they are committed to the Java version for the foreseeable future. They wouldn't be making such substantial changes if they were going to discontinue it.
This change will also require a lot of work to many mods, so some may rebrand and others may cease development. I wonder if 1.20.1 and 1.21.4 in particular will go down as versions similar to 1.7.10, 1.12.2, and 1.16.5 as popular modded destinations.
"'Tis foolishness! If all were so easy, why, none would suffer in this world!"
If you're having performance concerns with Minecraft, I hope this may prove useful.
A retrospective of the most important game to me (or, a try to stay awake while I never stop talking about something challenge).
For sure (now that have more time to comment/think about it and mess up what I mean), I'm not aware/intelligent enough to know for sure how it actually works, my coding skills are so primitive after all. XD I'm a mod advertiser/wiki editor after all. XD
it effecting modern versions for sure, it effecting more then that I would wonder? Mojang wouldn't go that far? I'd assume it wouldn't and would just be modern versions.
Though whatever of servers too. But that's a different factor or shouldn't matter? I don't know I'd say anything with dramatic change is worth considering but again some things may not and I'm just assuming with each possibilities then the reality I have no understanding of.
But from what I remember of the game rendering. and what I saw from the Boundary Break video showing the player camera view and more, me testing the render distance (and trying to understand simulation distance).
I have no idea how that actually is calculated, and all the technical of it, but it's a fair visual representation at least. Besides those who make their own mods/are way more aware and able to break that stuff down.
I hope they get LOD or other performance worked out. However the world gen algorithms/calculations are. I don't know enough how Bedrock differs but either way it would be still exciting.
I will say to me I've never been disappointed in how Minecraft works out player defeats or teleports (to existing locations), in terms of general new world gen sure that I can see reason in.
But even other games I go hmm when it comes to them and new generation or reloading old ones and all the things around them empty spaces just environment/objects, or further with NPCs and more crowded of objects and such that it makes sense.
That's fair, I'd say it does it better then most games do HDD or SSD with fast travel or defeats and how they reload all the time (or how much it pulls from the session or world files and so on) I assume games don't just generate.
Or I assume Minecraft and how much it has the original state of the world and the player altered/eliminated block changes to factor it keeps track of.
Those devs probably have their reasons in other games and whatever lack of optimization or other factors, let alone how Mojang does per update and the scale the game is really in comparison being vastly different.
But even still with how much is in RAM, CPU, caches and more I do question it sometimes how much the system has to transport players, work out all the NPCs and objects in any linear or open world game, compared to how much voxels and others cost or just in general the algorithms being tightly designed.
You can tell my comparisons aren't necessary and I'm just spouting nonsense but I'm also not intelligent enough to understand how it all works or what to construct on the topic, so I'm saying whatever I can as I do find this stuff fascinating if I can't really say much on the matter.
I myself don't care much for render distance, but I get the appeal with higher ones, I just got used to lower distances regardless of hardware and just work with whatever I need to really.
That and it will be impressive how much performance we get, what distances, what way the generation of objects, animations, players, altered parts of the world and more calculate in Vulkan compared to OpenGL.
However much they differ as I've no idea.
Even using emulation I have not properly tested or noticed enough, but that's also just because I'm not really tweaking the games with mods that maybe offer those settings or whatever as they are pre made games of course this way and whatever the distances, fog, etc. is going on that's visible.
Obviously with a game on PC offering such settings you really do notice the difference when tweaking each detail.
Minecraft is the one game where because I can scale it that easily (not played enough PC games either really so that's also on me how common the setting is too, what it's called, etc. how much can be scaled or is suitable for each person's hardware and not just mods for such a thing in other games).
The one game I use it, when others are set to what they are, I go yeah I can see why, or how much fog is intentional for atmosphere or setting a scene and when others are done for hiding details, besides other methods over the years/current era of doing so for such set pieces or terrain change or whatever else to render, introduce, etc.
I guess so. If they make it a good basis for sure and really get it going well. But who knows with the initial change we will have to see.
Well many mods or modloaders changes have very much left modders on older versions or 'adapted'/offered solutions to aid in things, or given up or moved to other modloaders (whatever features/environment comforts or effective methods not offered they preferred to use) so anything is possible due to Mojang's decisions. Whether they offer easy adapting methods who knows, we will have to see.
I mean how with Datapacks go still? Many mods do go for the datapack format of course as that aided things for sure, but how much will change for more particular mods scale, objects, tweaks, logic and so on who knows.
I don't know what mods are even using Vulkan if there even are, I bet some may have considered it and would love to use it, not just a case of other games. That or what versions it's being worked against as the other factor.
I can speculate anything and have no clue, whether other languages and solutions for things when they have preferences of Kotlin or anything else they choose to, or other graphics, physics, animations and more things mods can, and how much altering the game or not framework they have to fit into that I have no understanding about at all. XD
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Yes, this will only affect versions going forward. It won't retroactively change anything with current versions.
Also, this is only going to affect Java, not Bedrock. Bedrock currently uses DirectX 12 (older versions used DirectX 11 and the current version may still have such a fallback) and that won't change. Since I said it's switching from OpenGL, that may have been able to be inferred, but for those who don't know, I'll edit the first post to add that this change will only affect Java.
From what I understand, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the change to the rendering API itself should really only affect the client and not so much the server. However, there may be changes made to the game (and internal server workings) as a result of this rendering change.
So it might be a case of "directly, no, but indirectly, maybe" I guess?
There are some mods that use it, such as this one. Needless to say, such mods are limited in number, and compatibility with other mods is low.
https://modrinth.com/mod/vulkanmod
A number of other games also use Vulkan, and Hytale is another game that I would expect may move to it. While it launched using OpenGL, there is a mention that either Vulakn or DirectX 12 support might be necessary in the future.
"Note: A graphics card with up-to-date drivers supporting at least OpenGL 4.1 is required. Future versions of Hytale may additionally require support for Vulkan 1.3 and DirectX 12."
The graphics card generations Hytale is referencing seem to be around the point where Vulkan support began, which also lines up. Either way, Hytale is likely also already looking to move away from OpenGL. I imagine the only reason it launched using it in the first place is because of how they went back to earlier builds after re-obtaining the project, and it was probably originally made with that all those years ago.
OpenGL doesn't really have a great future, especially not for a game that you want to keep developing and have it be as accessible as possible, which is why I opened the thread with a "it was a matter of when, not if". Vulkan is more or less the better, spiritual successor to OpenGL so it was the choice I would have expected.
The industry has been moving towards low level APIs (like Vulkan and DirectX 12) because of their advantages. One of Vulkan's in particular is lower CPU overhead, which I imagine could be important for Minecraft since it is almost always limited from further performance by the CPU (and RAM) more than anything else. For a similar reason, this might even disproportionately (if slightly) benefit users of Intel (graphics, not CPUs) and nVidia because their video drivers can have a higher CPU performance cost overhead (thus, older or slower CPUs are more affected by this).
"'Tis foolishness! If all were so easy, why, none would suffer in this world!"
If you're having performance concerns with Minecraft, I hope this may prove useful.
A retrospective of the most important game to me (or, a try to stay awake while I never stop talking about something challenge).
what will happen if the hardware is unsupported will they add like a toggelable options to choose b/w open gl and vulkan like they said they will do in snapshots
OpenGL will remain in the interim, but that's only going to be for a short while (perhaps only during snapshots) and eventually OpenGL will be dropped because they're not going to maintain two separate branches. While they haven't made any formal announcements in regards to changes in hardware requirements yet, anything that doesn't support Vulkan will not be able to function with it, so I would expect such hardware would no longer be supported by the game after that point.
I would expect updated requirements to be announced eventually (again, the memory requirements of Java haven't been realistic in the first place unless they're listing only what the game needs, but that's an atypical way to do it, and most stuff lists what the system needs), and I would expect for them to be similar to what Hytale requires for graphics hardware, which is Maxwell+ on nVidia side (GeForce 900 series, perhaps including 750/745 whether they list it or not because those are Maxwell but if it needs second generation Maxwell, they won't be supported), GCN 4.0+ on AMD (Radeon RX 400 series), and probably around HD 6x0 on Intel. Sometimes you can get better support under Linux because the hardware may be capable, but nVidia/AMD/Intel didn't update drivers for old stuff whereas the Linux community may have.
"'Tis foolishness! If all were so easy, why, none would suffer in this world!"
If you're having performance concerns with Minecraft, I hope this may prove useful.
A retrospective of the most important game to me (or, a try to stay awake while I never stop talking about something challenge).
that literally sucks bro, because a lot of mods will be affected, and shaders too
🗣 THIS IS MINECRAFT 🗣
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Curse Premium26.2 Snapshot 1 Came out today, and I had to know the performance impact if better or worse on the Mac (most people do have a 'PC' or Windows-based device).
They are using Vulkan 1.2 with the translation layer for it being MoltenVK, which is a fairly decent way to do things. Also fancy transparency is now supported through Vulkan on macOS (it was not before).
The game runs like OpenGL did in 26.1 Minecraft on macOS.
Minecraft under Vulkan (MoltenVK) runs as follows in the Overworld with some Jungle biomes and other heavy biomes nearby and normal terrain generation:
Apple Silicon (M1-M2 standard variants, no pro or max):
~180-200 fps on lower settings (14+ chunks, all particles, fancy lighting, fancy transparency) and ~80-100% GPU usage.
Of course this is vanilla with no shaders, no high-res texture packs, and no mods.
If anyone wants to comment on this, feel free to. I think that this performance with Vulkan(ish) is acceptable for servers and singleplayer worlds, since it did not make the game run worse (and through a translation layer, no less).
Oh, so this is already coming out in snapshots?
How does that compare to OpenGL in 26.2? You say that Vulkan in 26.2 performs similar to OpenGL in 26.1, but does OpenGL in 26.2 perform the same as it does in 26.1?
Seeing your post mention that Vulkan is available in snapshots, I decided to try it. I use a Windows system, but I'm a sample size of one. Others should try for themselves. On my system and at the settings I'm using (see below), I'm seeing around half the average frame rate in Vulkan as opposed to OpenGL once chunks are loaded in and looking level with the horizon.
This is Vulkan.
This is OpenGL.
These are using different seeds so this isn't a strictly controlled test, but I tried both in a few seeds and the disparity that the above examples demonstrate is representative.
These are the settings I used for both, with one non-impactful exception mentioned below.
The higher half of the render distance range is where vanilla traditionally performs poorly, but there's still a disparity between the two renderers. GPU use is very low with Vulkan which would seem to imply the rendering limitation is oddly CPU-side?
I tried changing a few settings, such as filtering and other things, to see if any particular setting was dragging down Vulkan performance but not OpenGL, but nothing seemed to make a difference there.
I'm also using older, but not very old, drivers from late last year.
All of this is to say that my results apply to my hardware, drivers, and settings only, and may not apply to everyone. This is also on a snapshot version and without performance mods. I wouldn't read into this too much as a sign it will be worse for everyone under all conditions. Still, there is a reduced frame rate under Vulkan for me so far. The Silver lining might be that vanilla performs more smoothly at such a render distance compared to before, regardless of the average frame rate differences here.
"'Tis foolishness! If all were so easy, why, none would suffer in this world!"
If you're having performance concerns with Minecraft, I hope this may prove useful.
A retrospective of the most important game to me (or, a try to stay awake while I never stop talking about something challenge).
isnt vulkan opengl but just red and has more fps??????????? ?_? O_O
Blue Glazed Terracotta