Khronos delays first Vulkan graphics API release

Khronos has announced that it will not make it to the planned release date of the first final version of Vulkan. The specification has been completed, but still has to undergo a review round. Interested parties will therefore have to wait for the release of the SDK.

On his website, Khronos states that version 1.0 of Vulkan will not be released before the end of the year as initially planned. Although the api is more or less ready, the legal department still has to give approval and a lot of ‘polishing’ is still being done. When the new release date is planned has not been announced, but according to Khronos it should not take very long.

Furthermore, Khronos is still working on the SDKs for Vulkan. Versions for Windows, Android and Linux are planned and, according to the developer, they are almost finished. Again, no final release date has been released yet, but it is likely that the SDKs will be available when Vulkan 1.0 is released.

Vulkan has been available as an open beta for some time and offers low-level access to the GPU. The api is supposed to follow OpenGL and was therefore known for some time under the name glNext. Several companies have already committed to using Vulkan, including Google. The latter has now also joined the management and is contributing to the development.