Doom OpenGL VS Vulkan Graphics Performance Analysis

Final Thoughts

Throughout the past few weeks, I’ve received some passionate pleas from hardware fans wanting me to include Doom Vulkan testing and conduct a performance analysis. Of course, I understand the reason behind this but the complicated benchmarking process meant I had to do a thorough investigation and feel comfortable with the results’ accuracy. Not only that, I only received the press key recently and needed a spare slot in my schedule to test Doom properly. Please note, in all future graphics cards reviews from both AMD and NVIDIA, Doom Vulkan testing will be included in the interest of fairness. Furthermore, when the benchmarking tools improve, I’ll endeavour to revisit the game and see how the performance changes over time.

Now that I’ve given some clarification on the benchmarking and why the previous reviews used OpenGL, let’s discuss the results. The Vulkan API is a monumental victory for AMD and consistently offers massive performance gains on every single product I’ve tested. Recently, I’ve heard a few mumblings that Vulkan has worryingly low minimum frame-rates on AMD hardware, but I never encountered this. If anything, Vulkan eliminated sudden drops in most scenarios and there appeared to be less stutter than before. It’s important to note that Vulkan doesn’t just benefit AMD GPUs as some NVIDIA cards like the GTX 980Ti, GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 perform better with this API providing you’re using a 1080p or 1440p monitor. Additionally, one could argue that the Vulkan numbers simply bring AMD performance to where they should be and even when it’s been enabled, GTX products maintain the top two spots.

Personally, I struggle to fathom this train of thought because it doesn’t take into account the current GPU roadmaps. AMD and NVIDIA have employed different strategies and AMD hasn’t unveiled their high-performance range. Therefore, it seems unfair to perform a direct comparison. Also, the notion that AMD products should perform in a certain way seems flawed and based on the idea of desired performance. The situation isn’t complicated and the best policy is to compare the OpenGL and Vulkan data to see what tangible difference it makes.

AMD’s GCN architecture is engineered towards DirectX 12 and Vulkan optimisation which makes the future very bright as more developers employ the latest APIs. I’ve mentioned this before but Microsoft’s new commitment to PC gaming and influx of DirectX 12 titles should encourage more studios to move beyond DirectX 11. Doom isn’t the most demanding title ever produced and the majority of graphics cards released within the past few years can achieve a 60 frames-per-second average when paired with a 1920×1080 monitor. Of course, the graphical demands increase exponentially at higher resolutions but it’s not enough to derail mainstream GPUs apart from when you move to a 4K display. Rather impressively, Doom’s Vulkan engine is able to maintain a frame-rate around 60 at 1440p with affordable hardware like the GTX 970 or R9 380X.

It’s evidently clear that Vulkan is a game changer but more titles have to implement this API for it to become more than a curiosity piece for PC enthusiasts. I’m fairly confident that Vulkan will be adopted by more companies especially since it allows developers to harness lower CPU overheads on a wide range of operating systems. The largest flaw of DirectX 12 is the Windows 10 exclusivity and many users refuse to upgrade to this particular operating system. Whether this is down to concerns regarding privacy, or irritating bugs isn’t important, the vital element revolves around the idea of a game’s audience. In theory, the real potential of newer APIs will be unlocked once games are built entirely upon them. Developers aren’t going to do this with DirectX 12 if a large portion of the market still uses Windows 7, 8 or 8.1. This situation is quite apt at the moment as the free Windows 10 upgrade promotion ends on the 29/07/2016. As a result, I strongly believe Vulkan is the better option for the future of PC gaming as an open, inclusive platform.

In summary, Vulkan isn’t just a small boost for AMD graphics cards, it provides a humongous performance improvement which cannot be overemphasised.  If you own an AMD product, please turn on Vulkan because you’ll have a smoother, more consistent user-experience. This also applies to NVIDIA users, but I’d recommend doing some additional testing to ensure the frame-rate is higher. Vulkan is still in its infancy but it could revolutionise PC gaming and bring excellent performance to hardware most people can afford. Remember to stay tuned for the next article which analyses the effect of modern APIs on older hardware like the HD7970.

Thank you to all our partners who provided the hardware and software that made this performance analysis possible.