December 16, 2025
No API, big drama
No Graphics API
30-year graphics vet says cut the fat — commenters roast Microsoft and demand numbers
TLDR: A veteran graphics engineer argues today’s graphics tools are bloated and due for a slim, modern rethink. Commenters split between cheering the clean‑up, accusing it of reinventing old wrappers, roasting Microsoft for stagnation, and demanding proof in numbers—making this a big deal for future game performance and tools alike.
A legend of game graphics, Sebastian Aaltonen, just shook the table with “No Graphics API,” arguing the tools devs use to talk to GPUs (think Microsoft’s DirectX, open Vulkan, and Apple’s Metal) are a decade old and stuffed with baggage. His take: modern hardware doesn’t need all that glue—keep it lean, pre-pack the settings, and get closer to the metal. He even says he double-checked with an AI to keep it NDA-safe, which only added to the spectacle in the comments.
The crowd split fast. One camp is yelling “finally!” as vblanco cheers that big chunks of today’s tools are unnecessary and dunks on Microsoft for letting DirectX 12 “feel abandoned,” especially without simple things like memory pointers. Another camp, led by henning, shrugs: this smells like yet another wrapper layer (an RHI—a translator that lets games talk to many devices), same vibe as SDL3. Then there’s thescriptkiddie, who fires the funniest shot: if you’re going to say “PSO” a hundred times, at least explain it—PSO = Pipeline State Object, basically a pre-packed bundle of settings.
Meanwhile, ksec stirs the pot with “M$” barbs and wonders if Unreal Engine made DirectX updates pointless, while yieldcrv demands receipts: how much faster is this, exactly? Jokes fly: “PSO = Please Spell Out,” and “No API? No problem—until you need benchmarks.”
Key Points
- •AMD’s GCN architecture, following Xbox One and PS4 wins, catalyzed the move to low-level PC graphics APIs.
- •Mantle by AMD and DICE prompted the development of DirectX 12, Vulkan, and Metal.
- •Despite benchmark gains, major engines often saw performance regressions when porting DX11 renderers to DX12.
- •Engine RHIs built for immediate-mode rendering clashed with low-level APIs requiring persistent, bundled state, leading to a remapping layer.
- •Graphics programming roles split into low-level (RHI/driver) and high-level (visual algorithms), as visual complexity grew with PBR, compute shaders, and ray tracing.