Why I Started Learning Vulkan Without Touching OpenGL

🧠 Introduction

When people start their graphics programming journey, they often start with OpenGL. That makes sense — it has been around for decades, used in thousands of applications, and has a mountain of tutorials online which made it east to learn.

But I made a different choice:
I skipped OpenGL and started directly with Vulkan.

And surprisingly? I don't regret it.
In fact, I think it’s one of the best decisions I’ve made as an aspiring graphics engineer.

Let me tell you why.

🕰️ 1. OpenGL Was Designed for a Very Different Era

OpenGL was released on June 30, 1993 — over 30 years ago!
Back then:

• GPUs were far less programmable

• Multi-threading was rare

• Real-time rendering wasn't mainstream

• We didn’t even have shaders as we know them today!

OpenGL was revolutionary in its time. But since then, GPU hardware and software have changed drastically.

In contrast, Vulkan was released on February 16, 2016 — designed from the ground up for modern multi-core CPUs, multi-threaded rendering, and low-level GPU access.

I wanted to build a career with today's (and tomorrow’s) hardware in mind — not yesterday’s.

💡 2. OpenGL Felt Like a Black Box to Me

Let me put it this way:

Using OpenGL sometimes felt like I was making API calls to a graphics server and hoping it did what I wanted.

You send commands to the GPU, but you’re never quite sure what’s happening inside. Debugging it can be painful, especially when something silently fails or behaves unexpectedly.

🔎 3. Vulkan Taught Me What’s Actually Going On

Vulkan is verbose, yes.

You write more lines of code to do what OpenGL might do in a handful.
But here’s the thing:

Every single line in Vulkan has a purpose. It teaches you something about how the GPU works.

For me, it was like peeling back the curtain and finally understanding:

• How Graphics Device get Selected

• How GPU Raster the image on screen.

• How GPU memory is allocated and bound

• How commands are queued and synchronized

• How descriptor sets control shader input

• How data flows through the pipeline

It’s not just API calls — it’s a crash course in GPU architecture

🎓 4. Even Universities Are Shifting to Vulkan

I’m not alone in this mindset.

Many modern university-level graphics programming courses have started teaching Vulkan first, skipping OpenGL entirely.
Why?

Because the GPU architecture of today — with async compute, pipelines, and deep parallelism — is more accurately represented in Vulkan.

And learning Vulkan helps students understand how the hardware actually works, not just how to use a convenience wrapper.

🚀 5. It Prepares Me for Real-World, Next-Gen Engines

Whether you’re targeting:

• AAA game engines (like Unreal 5 or custom ones)

• Simulation

• Realtime rendering

• Cross-platform engines like Unity’s Scriptable Render Pipeline (SRP)

→ Most of these systems are now using low-level APIs like Vulkan, Metal, or DX12 under the hood.

So why not learn the thing that powers the future?

🧗‍♂️ Is Vulkan Harder? Yes.

But Is It Worth It? 100%.

I won’t lie — Vulkan has a steep learning curve.
There are days I feel like I’m fighting a monster of boilerplate just to draw a triangle.

But you know what?

Every line of Vulkan code makes me a better graphics engineer.

Because I’m not just using tools — I’m understanding then GPU Architecture.

🏁 Conclusion

So that’s why I chose to start my graphics journey directly with Vulkan:

• It reflects modern GPU design

• It teaches me low-level understanding

• It eliminates the “black box” feeling

• It aligns with the direction of real-world engines

If you’re someone who loves math, system design, and deep GPU knowledge, don’t be afraid to go Vulkan-first.
It’s not the easiest path — but it’s definitely one of the most powerful.