Low-overhead graphics APIs are all the rage these days, at least if you're the sort of person who gets excited about graphics APIs. iOS 8 introduced Metal last year, and OS X El Capitan will bring the API to the Mac when it's released this fall. The just-released Windows 10 includes DirectX 12, which will also come to Windows Phone when it gets updated later this year. And today Google announced that Android will be picking up support for Vulkan, the Khronos Group's low-overhead follow-up to OpenGL and OpenGL ES.
Like the other low-overhead APIs, Vulkan promises to improve performance by providing more direct access to the GPU—developers can manage memory and multiple threads on their own rather than leaving it up to the driver, giving them more work to do but also providing more flexibility. The difference is that, like OpenGL, Vulkan will be available for anybody and could theoretically be added to any and all of the major operating systems.
Like Metal and DirectX 12, Vulkan will require both operating system support and hardware support. Vulkan should be compatible with any GPU that currently supports OpenGL ES 3.1, which includes Qualcomm's Adreno 400-series GPUs and newer, Imagination Technologies' PowerVR Series 6 GPUs and newer, Nvidia's Tegra K1 and newer, and ARM's 600-, 700-, and 800-series Mali GPUs. That covers just about every high-end phone and tablet released between late 2014 and today.
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