> if you are building something today that doesn't have very high performance needs sticking to the OpenGL API is probably a good way to ensure that you won't have to migrate to something else for a very, very long time.
That is, in fact, precisely the wrong advice.
Vulkan runs on Windows, Linux, and OS X (via MoltenVk). Nothing else does.
OS X runs OpenGL 3.Ancient and has now dropped OpenGL. OpenGL drivers for Linux tend to be laughably worse than the Vulkan drivers.
All of the major gaming companies have basically said "We have no OpenGL jobs. We have a ton of unfilled Vulkan jobs."
If you aren't using DirectWhatever, Vulkan is going to be the only useful 3D API very shortly.
OS X runs OpenGL 4.1 and is still available even if deprecated. If you are considering MoltenVK as a viable option then perhaps Zink over MoltenVK would work in the future.
Note that most of the newer OpenGL features are largely about sending stuff faster to the GPU, not enabling new GPU features - you can do a lot of stuff with OpenGL 4.1. IMO if you are struggling for CPU performance with OpenGL then you might be better moving to Vulkan. But if this isn't your bottleneck then there isn't a reason to not stick with OpenGL.
If OpenGL drivers on Linux are "laughably worse" (though in practice i haven't much of a difference) then the solution is to improve those drivers. It'll be better for all the thousands of existing applications too.
> OS X runs OpenGL 4.1 and is still available even if deprecated.
You are correct. I misspoke. I meant to say 4.Ancient since 4.1 is 10 years old now.
> Note that most of the newer OpenGL features are largely about sending stuff faster to the GPU, not enabling new GPU features
For shaders, I certainly find that not true. There are a lot of shader features that got added over 10 years.
And, I believe things even as important as Uniform Buffer Objects are later than 4.1.
OpenGL 4.1 just ... isn't good in this day and age.
> If OpenGL drivers on Linux are "laughably worse" (though in practice i haven't much of a difference) then the solution is to improve those drivers.
I totally disagree. There simply aren't enough people in the Linux ecosystem to maintain those drivers and Vulkan drivers. I'd rather those developers all work on the newer and better API.
Vulkan runs on Windows , only runs outside sandbox model and doesn't support RDP sessions, because ICD OpenGL driver model isn't supported in such scenarios.
ICD OpenGL drivers are also not supported on Windows ARM variants.
Microsoft is driving the effort of OpenGL and related technology on top of DirectX instead.
Also so far there is no Vulkan on PlayStation, and while Switch does support Vulkan/OpenGL 4.5, most titles are either using middleware like Unity (ca 50% of Switch titles) or NVN.
I think the person you responded to was comparing OpenGL to Vulkan middleware wrappers from the perspective of API usage. From that angle, whether or not OpenGL drivers are provided at all is completely irrelevant. The API itself will presumably remain available, implemented under the hood via Zink (or similar) on top of Vulkan (or DirectX, or Metal, etc). Such an arrangement is likely to be more stable than middleware that can change overnight at the whims of it's developers.
As verbose as Vulkan may be, it's a well-designed vanilla C API. Some of the future helper libraries may also be in vanilla C, in which case it's not difficult to version and ensure relative stability.
That is, in fact, precisely the wrong advice.
Vulkan runs on Windows, Linux, and OS X (via MoltenVk). Nothing else does.
OS X runs OpenGL 3.Ancient and has now dropped OpenGL. OpenGL drivers for Linux tend to be laughably worse than the Vulkan drivers.
All of the major gaming companies have basically said "We have no OpenGL jobs. We have a ton of unfilled Vulkan jobs."
If you aren't using DirectWhatever, Vulkan is going to be the only useful 3D API very shortly.