When will I need to worry about upgrading my graphics card for Godot 4?

Sosasees

For the necessary Vulkan compatibility on my Linux computer, I want to upgrade my graphics card from a NVidia card to an AMD card when Godot 4 releases.

Until that, I will continue using Godot 3.x with the NVidia card.

If you're wondering why my Linux computer has an NVidia graphics card in the first place: This is historically conditioned because my computer originally came with Windows pre-installed, and I had used it for a few years before I decided that Linux is a much better operating system for my needs.

When will I need to worry about actually replacing the graphics card for using Godot 4 when it releases?

cybereality

Probably not. Even Juan uses a 1060 and says he tested on Intel integrated graphics and it works.

Megalomaniak

Whats the nvidia card model? So long as the drivers support vulkan you should be fine.

cybereality

Right, it has to be somewhat recent to support Vulkan. Looks like most major cards from the GTX 600 series and newer will work. https://developer.nvidia.com/vulkan-driver Also, Nvidia works alright on Linux as long as you are okay with the proprietary drivers. I'd prefer AMD as well, but I'm waiting til they have something better before building a new computer (probably next year at the earliest). My machine now is pretty beefy anyway so not like I'm in a rush to upgrade.

Sosasees

My NVidia card is the GTX 750. The AMD card I plan to buy is the RX 550 (the variant with 2GB VRAM).

Yes, I actually Want my graphics card to be not that powerful. Game Development with Godot 4 should still work as well as intended. (This is a testament to how much I believe Godot has proven to care for good optimization of its engine. Godot 3.x even runs on the notoriously weak Chromebooks!)

Choosing a less powerful graphics card like this will not only be cheaper to buy, but also important to me is the added benefit that my games will automatically tend to be better-optimized for mid-end computers because the optimization I'd have to do to make my games run smoothly on my Own computer would have to be better.

cybereality

Yeah, that is a good strategy. My main gaming/dev box is high end, but I have a second computer with a GTX 1060 that I use for testing, as well as an Intel integrated mini-PC, and a few random laptops. It's nice to mess with high end graphics, but it's also good to keep in mind that most gamers use a GTX 1060 or below, so you want to make sure the game will run okay for those people too. Also you notice the most popular games for e-sports will all run on a potato PC. There is probably a reason for that.

Sosasees

I have just checked for things to watch out for before changing the graphics card, and my conclusion is

"Yes, I could replace the graphics card and nothing else. I'll just have to make sure to backup my data to my external drive before changing the graphics card, and afterwards re-installing Linux to make sure that it uses the AMD driver instead of continuing to use the NVidia driver and my computer being damaged as a result"

As I can wait before getting the AMD card, I'll get it near Beginning 2022 as I (attempt to) predict that Godot 4 will be released shortly after. If this is a very inaccurate time estimate, please correct me.

Calinou

Full Vulkan 1.0 support is found on the following desktop/laptop graphics cards:

Intel Broadwell and later. Haswell only has partial Vulkan support, which isn't sufficient for full-blown game engines (only for some demos).
NVIDIA Kepler and later.
AMD GCN 2.0 and later (R9 200 series). Support may be available on GCN 1.0 (HD 7000 series) on Linux, although I haven't verified this.

cybereality

Definitely backup your data first, but you can switch graphics cards without reinstalling Linux. It's easiest if your CPU has integrated graphics (on Intel, mostly they all do) and you can use that to boot into the system and install the new drivers. Otherwise I think there is a way to do it in Grub but I haven't tried that myself.