Robert Osfield Announces First Steps Towards VulkanSceneGraph

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imec
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Robert Osfield Announces First Steps Towards VulkanSceneGraph

Post by imec »

The VulkanSceneGraph project is now under-way and will be a multi-year effort to develop an open source, next generation scene graph based on the Vulkan graphics API and modern C++.

The project is under the auspices of Robert Osfield, principal author and project lead of the OpenSceneGraph. The new scene graph is the successor to the OpenSceneGraph, building upon all the knowledge and skills accumulated through the OpenSceneGraph's 20 years history. The OpenSceneGraph and VulkanSceneGraph are both members of the same family, the DNA of the best elements of the OpenSceneGraph will be evident in the new scene graph. If you like the OpenSceneGraph we hope you'll love the VulkanSceneGraph.

The OpenSceneGraph will remain supported and will co-exist with the new scene graph for many years to come. While not API compatible the two scene graphs will evolve in parallel and development will be done in a way that will help application developers make the transition to the VulkanSceneGraph if and when they are ready.

Development of the VulkanSceneGraph will follow the spiral model of software development with three phases leading up to the 1.0 stable release. These phases will broadly be:
- Exploration Phase: Running June through August 2018 to research the technologies and techniques to be used

- Development Phase: September 2018 onwards, will establish core scene graph classes with Vulkan support. Hopefully alpha functionality by the end of 2018/early 2019

- Refinement Phase: Timing depends upon phase two, with broad aim for beta functional in 2019. The core scene graph will be tested in graphics application development, with refinements made to support working towards 1.0 stable release
Full statement available here.

This seems like a significant development for the OpenMW project. Osfield said that he'd start development shortly following the 3.6 release and he wasn't kidding! Best wishes to everyone involved with this ambitious undertaking as the project advances.
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raevol
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Re: Robert Osfield Announces First Steps Towards VulkanSceneGraph

Post by raevol »

Pretty exciting. I've been dipping my toes in Vulkan, and recently played through Rise of the Tomb Raider which runs on it on Linux. Really impressive performance.
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lysol
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Re: Robert Osfield Announces First Steps Towards VulkanSceneGraph

Post by lysol »

This is why I love foss. No matter how much you brake down Morrowind and increase the modding capabilities, you can't just "add" Vulkan support to it (correct me if I'm wrong). But with OpenMW, you actually can.
terabyte25
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Re: Robert Osfield Announces First Steps Towards VulkanSceneGraph

Post by terabyte25 »

https://github.com/robertosfield/Vulkan ... hPrototype

VulkanSceneGraph prototype if anyone wants to play around with it.
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Ravenwing
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Re: Robert Osfield Announces First Steps Towards VulkanSceneGraph

Post by Ravenwing »

Not going to pretend that I really understand everything that Vulkan is supposed to be, but exciting news nonetheless. The way this sounds, VulkanSceneGraph is meant to deprecate OpenSceneGraph? Seems like we'll eventually be forced to migrate to it whether we want to or not then, although I'm sure there will be plenty of time. I imagine this will be much easier than the switch from Ogre to OSG given the relationship of VSG to OSG?
raevol wrote: 02 Jun 2018, 00:14 Pretty exciting. I've been dipping my toes in Vulkan, and recently played through Rise of the Tomb Raider which runs on it on Linux. Really impressive performance.
Any ideas how this might be translated to better performance for OpenMW? I'm sure it's very early to tell, but still fun to think about!
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raevol
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Re: Robert Osfield Announces First Steps Towards VulkanSceneGraph

Post by raevol »

Ravenwing wrote: 22 Oct 2018, 06:24 Any ideas how this might be translated to better performance for OpenMW? I'm sure it's very early to tell, but still fun to think about!
OpenMW performance bottleneck is still on physics unless I am mistaken? So won't mean much for us unless someone throws together some impressively high-poly/high-res mods that need Vulkan's memory management. But I am not an expert!
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wareya
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Re: Robert Osfield Announces First Steps Towards VulkanSceneGraph

Post by wareya »

Bottleneck is 100% on rendering on my system. Don't talk about bottlenecks like they're universal. https://i.imgur.com/Xo455Bz.jpg
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raevol
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Re: Robert Osfield Announces First Steps Towards VulkanSceneGraph

Post by raevol »

wareya wrote: 22 Oct 2018, 08:03 Don't talk about bottlenecks like they're universal.
raevol wrote: 22 Oct 2018, 07:40 ... unless I am mistaken? ... I am not an expert!
No need to be so harsh. :)

edit: Also, on my system, I am bouncing off my vsync cap, except on scenes where the physics bar is going over a sliver. So performance is definitely physics bound for me. Your graphs look the same, assuming your fps is maxed at 140. Find some scenes where your fps dips under your max, and see what is causing the dip.
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AnyOldName3
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Re: Robert Osfield Announces First Steps Towards VulkanSceneGraph

Post by AnyOldName3 »

With shadows (especially with multiple shadow maps in use) the performance bottleneck is quite often draw or cull. VulkanSceneGraph won't help with cull at all unless they've done something to optimise the traversal, which could be backported to OSG, but it might help significantly with draw.
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wareya
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Re: Robert Osfield Announces First Steps Towards VulkanSceneGraph

Post by wareya »

raevol wrote: 22 Oct 2018, 08:46 edit: Also, on my system, I am bouncing off my vsync cap, except on scenes where the physics bar is going over a sliver. So performance is definitely physics bound for me. Your graphs look the same, assuming your fps is maxed at 140. Find some scenes where your fps dips under your max, and see what is causing the dip.
My cap is actually 288 (though it doesn't seem to work - I can get 300fps+ in some interiors). vsync disabled (I have an adaptive sync monitor).
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