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Nintendo Switch Listed as Vulkan and OpenGL Conformant

Nintendo’s upcoming console, the Switch, has been certified as a Vulkan 1.0 conformant product by The Khronos Group. The confirmation comes after the console has been listed on the Khronos website as of the 18th December.

It advises that the product is CTS Version 1.0.1.0. For context, the Khronos Vulkan is described by Khronos as “a new generation graphics and compute API that provides high-efficiency, cross-platform access to modern GPUs.”

In addition to this, it also shows that the Switch is listed under the Khronos adopter program for OpenGL. The OpenGL allows developers of software to create high-performance graphics.

This sounds promising for the upcoming console, along with the recently confirmed Tegra chip powered by Nvidia.

Source / Via

Thanks, N-Dub Nation

48 thoughts on “Nintendo Switch Listed as Vulkan and OpenGL Conformant”

    1. FANTASTIC!

      That means cutting-edge graphics!

      In basic terms, it means programming on graphics will more deficient. More efficient = better visuals ro performance ratio overall.

      I wonder if they’ll stick with OpenGL for legacy reasons too.

    2. This is very good. It means the Switch will have very modern specs which will make it very developer friendly and easy to port to. The ease of development will be Nintendo’s focus going forward with the Switch but the system itself should be modern enough to run PS4 and Xbox One level games

      1. Excellent point. Not only that, the Switch also has an NVN API GPU made by NVIDIA, Vulkan, and Nintendo themselves.

      2. It’ll be able to run PS4 and Xbox One level games because its CPU is good enough. The graphics will be downgraded though.

      1. This is why I like natalielevig articles. She uses fact sources not rumored sources. You can’t argue what Nvidia and Khronos Group state.

    1. No. Why would this disprove the last article? It’s not like something needs to be powerful enough to “run Vulkan”. Vulkan is an API, an Application Programming Interface, and what’s unique about it is it’s small driver overhead and the ability for the CPU to issue commands to the GPU in a multi-threaded way. All this is saying is that the Switch and it’s graphics driver are Vulkan compliant. You can still have a weak SOC that support Vulkan.

        1. Trust me, I know what you mean. The rumors have gone out of control a long time.

          And if it’s about technical data most people talk about them, as if they exactly knew what they mean, even though they don’t.
          It is always the same…

    1. Except that’s not what it says. This says the chip is Vulkan compliant. This isn’t saying it’s a graphical beast, it’s saying developers should be able to use an API that will have very little CPU overhead and make better use of the GPU. As for saying it’s OpenGL conformant… almost everything is.

      So yea, in short, this is definitely true and the other article might be true.

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  1. Seriosly, there’s so many rumours alredy. Some are playing with this in hopes to make money or being watched in videos to gaing people favor for their own purpose.

  2. No one listens to me..
    I stated this WAY back before the first trailer for Switch.
    Nvidia says that the switch uses a custom graphics API called NVN.
    I still say that it stands for Nvidia Vulkan Nintendo or something to that effect.
    It’s even been said that the Switch will use OpenGL at first, and later games will use Vulkan.
    Go check my channel the goof, i have stated over and over that the switch is powerful because of Vulkan.
    Performance is not always 100% hardware side, it’s also software side, and that includes Graphics APIs.

    1. 101% on-point, Michael! You were the first man to tell us exactly what the NVN stands for since both Nintendo and NVIDIA are members of The Khronos Group.

      1. Actually i was slightly off.
        Before the trailer i mention how Nintendo joined Khronos.. and how the NX was probably going to use Vulkan.
        But after the trailer, i mentioned how it mentions on Nvidias website that the switch uses NVN, and that NVN probably was an Acharonim and the V stood for Vulkan.
        And then we have on the Khronos group site
        https://www.khronos.org/conformance/adopters/conformant-products#vulkan
        Showing Vulkan.
        We also have the simple fact that Unreal runs on Switch, and the only way for that to happen is if it was using something like Vulkan, which it is.
        If you go to Unreal Engine’s forums, they mention having Unreal running with Vulkan.
        I looked at all this information, and put 2 and 2 together and realized all this long before this was mentioned here on this site.

        I have done videos on this…
        So, yeah.

        I am absolutely SURE that the Secret Sauce of the Switches graphics IS the Vulkan API, not so much hardware.
        You can have the most powerful hardware in the world, and if the software can’t do much with it, including Graphics APIs, then it’s not worth much.

        The API is what’s going to show off the graphics fidelity of the Nintendo Switch.

        1. Unreal can also support NVN. Other consoles have had custom graphics APIs in the past and that was never a problem.

          You do bring up an interesting point though, that NVN might just be Vulkan with extensions from Nintendo and Nvidia.

          It should be noted though that Vulkan shouldn’t be considered secret sauce. All console have had lower level APIs. Even the Xbox 360, which used DX9, was using a more bare metal version of it.

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