People wanted more direct control over the GPU and memory, instead of having the drivers do that hard work.
To fix this AMD developed Mantle in 2013. This inspired others: Apple released Metal in 2014, Microsoft released DX12 in 2015, and Khronos released Vulkan in 2016 based on Mantle. They're all kind of similar (some APIs better than others IMO).
OpenGL did get some extensions to improve it too but in the end all the big engines just use the other 3.
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People wanted more direct control over the GPU and memory, instead of having the drivers do that hard work.
To fix this AMD developed Mantle in 2013. This inspired others: Apple released Metal in 2014, Microsoft released DX12 in 2015, and Khronos released Vulkan in 2016 based on Mantle. They're all kind of similar (some APIs better than others IMO).
OpenGL did get some extensions to improve it too but in the end all the big engines just use the other 3.