Windows 7, 8.1, 10, & Linux to Get Vulkan Multi-GPU Support!

Recent news revealed that while Vulkan would be getting multiple graphics card support, the feature would only be rolling out for Windows 10 users. This news pissed a lot of people off, as they use Linux, Windows 7, etc, but now it seems that the team at Khronos Group has listened to user feedback and has broadened their support by adding multi-GPU capabilities for Vulkan in Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Linux.

“The good news is that the Vulkan multi-GPU specification is very definitely NOT tied to Windows 10. It is possible to implement the Vulkan multi-GPU extension on any desktop OS including Windows 7, 8.X and 10 and Linux.” – Khronos Group

“Some of the Khronos GDC presentations mentioned that for Vulkan multi-GPU functionality, Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) must be in Linked Display Adapter (LDA) mode. That was not a very clear statement that has caused some confusion. And so it is worth clarifying that:

The use of WDDM is referring to the use of Vulkan multi-GPU functionality on Windows. On other OS, WDDM is not necessary to implement the Vulkan multi-GPU extension.

On Windows, the use of LDA mode can make implementing Vulkan multi-GPU functionality easier, and will probably be used by most implementations, but it is not strictly necessary.

If an implementation on Windows does decide to use LDA mode, it is NOT tied to Windows 10. LDA mode has been available on many versions of Windows, including Windows 7 and 8.X.”

So there you have it, if you play a lot of games the use Vulkan now or in the future, on more than just Windows 10, it looks like you can expect huge performance improvements for using multiple graphics cards, hurray!