. Vulkan is a low-overhead, cross-platform 3D graphics and compute API. Vulkan targets high-performance real-time 3D graphics applications such as video games and interactive media across all platforms. Compared with OpenGL and Direct3D 11, and like Direct3D 12 and Metal, Vulkan is intended to offer higher performance and more balanced CPU / GPU usage. Other major differences from Direct3D 11 (and prior) and OpenGL are Vulkan being a considerably lower level API and offering parallel tasking. Vulkan also has the ability to render 2D graphics applications. however, it is generally best suited for 3D. In addition to its lower CPU usage, Vulkan is also able to distribute the work amongst multiple CPU cores.[1]