The Vulkan API is the well-known successor to the OpenGL. The API update was announced back in 2015 and was included in Android Nougat, bringing some improvements in the graphical performance and opening new doors for the mobile gaming.
Just recently, a new revision update of Vulkan has been released and would make sense to see this updated in the upcoming version of the Android OS. According to some reports from users investigating the Android Open Source Project Gerrit, there is some evidence confirming the inclusion of the Vulkan 1.1 API in the upcoming Android P.
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Some of the features of Vulkan 1.1 include SubGroup operations, extensions integration, SPIR-V 1.3, and more. The commits integrating Vulkan 1.1 in Android have already been merged into the Android AOSP code. That means, that we may see the update already included in the next Developer Preview of Android P. Worth noting that most of the users will not see or understand the actual benefits of this new revision, after all, it’s not a groundbreaking update of the API but brings some good improvements to it.
Games using the current implementation of Vulkan will not suffer from the update, nothing will change and also nothing will stop working. The benefits will start to be seen once Android developers start to implement the 1.1 changes in new games running on Android P and after.
Vulkan is amazing. It’s light on CPU and GPU usage and is finally more optimized for multi-core SoCs (Just like Direct3D 12). Just look at ppsspp with OpenGL and Vulkan and see the difference in performance. Perhaps, with Vulkan, Android, as well as Linux gaming will be taken more seriously in the next couple of years.