Two open-source Nintendo emulator projects recently posted updates on their success in shipping on macOS using the open source MoltenVK ‘Vulkan over Metal’ runtime library:

• Ryujinx Switch Emulator Uses MoltenVK to Ship on Mac
  “All in all, we’re pleased with what we’ve managed to accomplish. A barrier that many, including ourselves, originally thought unbreakable has been cracked wide open, and the best part is: this is just the beginning. With not only our own efforts to improve the core emulation, but upcoming updates to Metal 3 and the constantly improving MoltenVK, the experience is only going to get better”
• Dolphin GameCube and the Wii Emulator Compares Metal Native Backend and MoltenVK
  “We will be relying on MoltenVK to be the benchmark that we compare our native Metal backend against going forward. And it should perform that role excellently, as it is bringing our well tested Vulkan backend to macOS through a very well supported translation layer from a team that has earned our trust. So, while our new native Metal backend is faster, MoltenVK is here to stay. Together, they will help us deliver the most consistently reliable and performant experience that we can give to our macOS users”

The new VK_EXT_descriptor_buffer extension will change how engines approach descriptors going forward. Descriptor sets are now backed by VkBuffer objects where you memcpy in descriptors. In the following blog, Hans-Kristian Arntzen, gives us an overview of the new extension including the history, reasoning, and how to implement.

At Mercedes-Benz Research & Development North America, we develop and certify cars for the U.S. and the world in six locations. Our work ranges from EV battery research to hybrid powertrain calibration and certification, from telematics to autonomous driving software, and from advanced exterior design to UX. It’s not just about cars, it’s also about creating the latest and greatest software, cutting-edge technology, and groundbreaking innovation.

First introduced in 2014 by the Khronos Group®, SYCL™ is a C++ based heterogeneous parallel programming framework for accelerating high performance computing (HPC), machine learning, embedded computing, and compute-intensive desktop applications on a wide range of processor architectures, including CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs, and tensor accelerators. SYCL 2020 launched in February 2021 to bring a new level of expressiveness and simplicity to developers programming heterogeneous parallel processors using modern C++, and further accelerating the deployment of SYCL on multiple platforms, including the use of diverse acceleration API backends in addition to OpenCL™.

Khronos has officially adopted ‘Kamaros’ (pronounced Kam-ă-ross) as the name for the Embedded Camera System API and the associated working group. Jointly promoted by Khronos and the European Machine Vision Association (EMVA), the Kamaros API Working Group is developing an open, royalty-free standard for controlling camera system runtimes in embedded, mobile, industrial, XR, automotive, and scientific markets.

The Khronos 3D Formats Working Group is constantly assessing emerging requirements of the glTF ecosystem and asking how the group can make the most impactful progress. Over the past 18 months, one issue has consistently bubbled to the top of these discussions: interactivity.

The urgency of developing new interactivity and behaviors capabilities for glTF has been fueled in part by the evolution towards the open metaverse. It’s clear that glTF can and should have an important role to play in this ecosystem, but we have some important functionality gaps to close first. We’ve spent the past few months cooperatively refining proposals for how we might build interactivity into glTF 3D assets. This blog will outline our current approach and reasoning, as well as invite the community to weigh in.

Join the Khronos 3D Formats Working Group and the glTF community at our virtual meetups. During each session our expert presenters will share use cases, best practices, tooling updates, and live demos, plus answer your questions live.

glTF Virtual Meetup #1 on Tuesday, November 8, 2022

• Integrating glTF into Qt3D, Vulkan and Embedded Applications - Mike Krus, KDAB
• Overcoming the Challenges in e-Commerce Content Creation - Jatinder Kukreja, SuperDNA 3D Lab
• 3D in Fashion - Baking Non-standard Unity Materials into glTF - Julien Berta, Smartpixels
• Ask the Experts - Q&A session with our panel of speakers and glTF experts

glTF Virtual Meetup #2 on Tuesday, November 15, 2022

• Blender glTF I/O : Support for glTF PBR Material Extensions - Julien Duroure, Blender Foundation
• Creating a Bridge Between Unity and three.js - Felix Herbst, prefrontal cortex
• Ask the Experts - Q&A session with our panel of speakers and glTF experts

glTF Virtual Meetup #3 on Tuesday, December 6, 2022

• Getting CGI Content Ready for Real-time with glTF - Max Limper, DGG
• Staging glTF to the Metaverse - Norbert Nopper, UX3D
• Volumetric glTF - Tim Porter, Mod Tech Labs
• Ask the Experts - Q&A session with our panel of speakers and glTF experts

Visit our events page for more information and registration: https://www.khronos.org/events/

The success of Khronos is dependent on the dedication and active contributions of its members. The Khronie Awards are presented to individuals who have made significant contributions in advancing the work of Khronos Working Groups towards their goals. The Khronies were presented at the Plenary Council meeting during the Phoenix Face to Face in October of 2022. Khronos is delighted to recognize the following members for their incredible hard work:

• Brent Insko, OpenXR
• Faith Ekstrand, Vulkan
• Brent Scannell, glTF
• Kurt Akeley, OpenGL
• Lisie Aartsen, Khronos Group
• Ann Thorsnes, Khronos Group
  

How do we solve the challenges of glTF asset creation? Artists can leverage glTF to create rich 3D visuals, but the process can be difficult. Assets can be difficult to create, many 3D assets are still not compatible, the tooling ecosystem has gaps, and rendering can be inconsistent. However, solutions are on the horizon! This webinar on November 3rd will showcase the work currently taking place within the Khronos Group to address the current challenges and how to solve them. It will be followed by a Q&A session with the speakers and a panel of industry experts.

Join us today at 9am PT to learn about cross-vendor mesh shading and source-level shader debugging with RenderDoc. The webinar will provide instructions, recommendations, and demonstrations. In addition, there will be Q&A sessions. Join us today!

OpenCL Tooling Task Sub Group (TSG) is actively contributing to the LLVM compiler infrastructure project and is determined to bring first-class support for OpenCL and SPIR-V to LLVM. While the latest release of Clang brought the long-awaited support for the OpenCL 3.0 standard, C++ for OpenCL 2021 kernel language, and the SPIR-V generation interface utilizing an external tool llvm-spirv from the SPIRV-LLVM-Translator repository, the work on the native GlobalISel-based SPIR-V backend continues at full speed. SPIR-V updates and many other exciting changes in the SPIR-V and OpenCL world will be discussed in depth at the upcoming 2022 LLVM Developers’ Meeting.

New Features Added to All Vulkan SDKs include:

Two new and important features have been added to GFXReconstruct:

• The “Virtual Swapchain” feature fixes incorrect screen output when swapchain image acquisition order or count is different on the target platform. Virtual Swapchain is enabled by default but can be disabled. See the GFXReconstruct documentation for more information.
• The new gfxrecon-convert tool (a.k.a. gfxrecon.py convert) produces JSONlines output representing all the Vulkan commands in a GFXReconstruct capture. For more information, see the “JSON Lines Conversion” section of the GFXReconstruct documentation.

The Vulkan Configurator (vkconfig) has been updated to improve quality and stability. See the Vulkan Configurator documentation for more information.

The HW Capability viewer from GPUInfo.org is included in the SDK (with an option to auto-launch), and much more…

Venus is a virtual Vulkan driver based on the Virtio-GPU protocol. Effectively a protocol on top of another protocol, it defines the serialization of Vulkan commands between guest and host. This blog covers details of the Venus driver, its components, and their relations in the context of extensions.

MoltenVK 1.2 was tagged today and with this version there is now support for Vulkan 1.2. This MoltenVK 1.2 release is built against the Vulkan SDK 1.3.231 and also exposes SPIR-V 1.4 support, KHR_shader_float_controls, improves Vulkan semaphore functionality, memory leaks have been addressed, crash fixes, and a variety of other improvements for mapping Vulkan to Metal.

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