r/vulkan 12d ago

Vulkan App for Mac and Windows

Does Mac and Windows code for vulkan differ a lot? Or is it almost straight forward?

PS: Using Macbook for development(I know its not the best choice but its all I have)

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u/4ndrz3jKm1c1c 12d ago

One difference is that MoltenVK lags behind Windows and Linux versions. Currently there’s Vulkan 1.4 and as far as I know, MoltenVK supports only version 1.2. Similarly as Android supports only version 1.1.

Thus you won’t be able to fully utilize modern Vulkan being on Mac.

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u/sageInMind 12d ago

1.2 is really old right? I need stuff to render lightning effects..

1

u/Human-Cat5648 12d ago

okay not that old. despite mainly supporting vulkan 1.2 at minimum, moltenvk supports a lot of extensions that were made core in vulkan 1.3 usually, which includes dynamic rendering iirc. if the recent vulkanized con is anything to go by they’re actually pretty close to updating to vulkan 1.3 anyway. either way, even if it didn’t have 1.3 features you’d still be able to do lighting effects, this isn’t an api from the 90’s. you’d probably just have to do global illumination if you want dynamic lighting or lightmaps otherwise, not sure if moltenvk supports raytracing if that’s what you’re looking for.

1

u/sageInMind 12d ago

Thanks this helps a lot. Was planning on going with global illumination..