Nvidia updates GeForce Experience to support Vulkan and OpenGL

Nvidia has updated its GeForce Experience software to version 3.6, and with it comes a welcome upgrade in functionality. Specifically, the latest GeForce Experience build adds video capture and broadcasting support for OpenGL and Vulkan games using ShadowPlay.

"In other words, you can now stream and record your Minecraft and Doom gameplay with the press of one hotkey, and use the built-in overlay to easily share to Facebook, Google, Twitch, and more. It’s powered by our acclaimed ShadowPlay technology, so you can capture up to 4K 60 FPS and never miss a beat while you game," Nvidia says.

Prior to this update, video capture through ShadowPlay (currently called Share) was limited to Microsoft's DirectX API. That meant if a game supported both DirectX and either OpenGL or Vulkan, you had to roll with DirectX for recording and broadcasting.

This is perhaps a bigger deal for Vulkan and its proponents who are pulling for the API over DX12. To that end, Cloud Imperium Games previously announced plans to dropkick DX11 and move away from DX12 in favor of Vulkan for its crowdfunded Star Citizen game. Oxide has also said it will port Ashes of the Singularity to Vulkan, so the first DX12 game will potentially jump ship.

Interestingly enough, AMD also has a vested interest here. AMD and Bethesda formed a partnership earlier this year to "accelerate the implementation" of Vulkan and squeeze the most performance out of AMD's Ryzen CPU and Vega GPU architectures.

Outside of expanded ShadowPlay support, GeForce Experience 3.6 features some UI improvements, including a unified Video and Screenshot upload interface. Nvidia also made tweaks to the Gallery with a new upload history and the ability to jump to the file location of a screenshot or video in Windows Explorer.

Ultimately, the choice of API is a software developer decision, and an API alone won't make or break a game. Nvidia's improved support for Vulkan and OpenGL meanwhile means users of the company's GPUs won't miss out on certain functionality, regardless of a game's choice of API.

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Paul has been playing PC games and raking his knuckles on computer hardware since the Commodore 64. He does not have any tattoos, but thinks it would be cool to get one that reads LOAD"*",8,1. In his off time, he rides motorcycles and wrestles alligators (only one of those is true).