Together with members Valve, LunarG, and The Brenwill Workshop, the Khronos Group has released the MoltenVK game dev framework to fully bring support for its cross-platform 3D graphics API Vulkan to iOS and MacOS.
Previously, iOS and MacOS were noticeably absent from Vulkan’s lists of supported platforms but the release of the free and open-source MoltenVK driver and the LunarG Vulkan SDK changes that.
Developers are now able to use MoltenVK in place of OpenGL to take advantage of the Khronos Group’s Vulkan API for their MacOS or iOS projects. MoltenVK allows iOS and MacOS to translate Vulkan-based games to Apple’s Metal API while the LunarG Vulkan SDK allows devs to build, run, and debut games and apps for both platforms.
The group says that the API grants noticeably higher performance when compared to native OpenGL drivers, at least in the case of Valve’s Dota 2.
Interested developers can find MoltenVK, LunarG, and all associated documentation over on the Khronos Group’s Portability Initiative website.
