The space simulator from Robert Space Industries will use the Vulkan cross-platform graphical API, from Khronos Group, to facilitate compatibility with other platforms.
Ali Brown, developer of Cloud Imperium Games, has reported via the official Star Citizen forums that they will stop supporting DirectX in favor of Vulkan, the Khronos Group’s cross-platform API. Brown has mentioned that the development team was using DirectX 11 and planned to add DirectX 12 as well, but they have decided to use Vulkan because it allows to support old versions of Windows and Linux without sacrificing performance or features. Another advantage of Vulkan is that it will allow you to add multi GPU support not only in Windows 10, but on all platforms. Since December last year, Star Citizen made the leap to Amazon’s Lumberyard engine, leaving CryEngine behind, and now it’s the turn of the graphics API.
“We announced our intention to support DX12 years ago, but since the introduction of Vulkan, which has the same set of features and performance advantages, it seemed more logical to use this API and not force our users to upgrade to Windows 10. Which opens the door to using a single graphical API for Windows 7, 8, 10 and Linux,” Brown commented.
DirectX 12 compatibility would arrive in the event that they will find a specific or substantial improvement over Vulkan. The virtual reality support of Star Citizen continues without news, but both the Lumberyard engine and the Vulkan API continue to add improvements that will allow the development team to have everything necessary to add compatibility to the expected Chris Roberts universe, once the time comes.
