The Khronos Group announces the release of the Vulkan 1.2 specification for GPU acceleration. This release integrates 23 proven extensions into the core Vulkan API, bringing significant developer-requested access to new hardware functionality, improved application performance, and enhanced API usability. Multiple GPU vendors have certified conformant implementations, and significant open source tooling is expected during January 2020. Vulkan continues to evolve by listening to developer needs, shipping new functionality as extensions, and then consolidating extensions that receive positive developer feedback into a unified core API specification. Khronos and the Vulkan community will support Vulkan 1.2 in a wide range of open source compilers, tools, and debuggers by the end of January 2020. Driver release updates will be posted on the Vulkan Public Release Tracker.
Find more information on the Vulkan 1.2 specification and associated tests and tools at:
AMD has released their Vulkan 1.2 driver as part of the official Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.1.2. Vulkan 1.2, released on January 15, 2020, is a large update which promoted many extensions into the core API. You can download the latest Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition here.
The Khronos Group announces the release of the Vulkan 1.2 specification for GPU acceleration. This release integrates 23 proven extensions into the core Vulkan API, bringing significant developer-requested access to new hardware functionality, improved application performance, and enhanced API usability. Multiple GPU vendors have certified conformant implementations, and significant open source tooling is expected during January 2020.
Vulkan Working Group member James Jones, Principal Software Engineer at NVIDIA, has written a Khronos Blog on using Vulkan Timeline Semaphores in Vulkan 1.2. The new timeline semaphore synchronization API shipping as VK_KHR_timeline_semaphore, and a core feature of Vulkan 1.2, defines a primitive containing a superset of both the original VkSemaphore and VkFence primitives, while simultaneously eliminating many of the most painful limitations of the previous APIs. Learn how this new feature in Vulkan 1.2 works with code examples.
Diligent Engine is a modern cross-platform abstraction layer for Vulkan, OpenGL, OpenGL ES, Direct3D11 and Direct3D12. In release v2.4.b, Diligent Engine enabled MSAA and bindless resources, implemented GPU queries, added new tutorials as well as made major improvements to code quality assurance by enabling automated unit tests, format validation and static code analysis.
GPUOpen has announced the release of Radeon GPU Profiler (RGP) v1.7. This release adds support for the latest Radeon graphics cards: the RX 5500 series and the RX 5300 series. RGP generates easy to understand visualizations of how your DirectX12, Vulkan, and OpenCL applications interact with the GPU at the hardware level. Profiling a game is both a quick and simple process using the Radeon Developer Panel and our public GPU driver.
NVIDIA has updated their sample framework and have added lots of new Vulkan content. There was a big focus on Raytracing for Vulkan and how to add that to OpenGL. Most samples now support loading glTF 2.0 models.
Google acquired and open-sourced GraphicsFuzz a little over a year ago. GraphicsFuzz is no longer about only OpenGL, OpenGL ES and GLSL shaders but also operates on SPIR-V shaders for consumption by Vulkan drivers. There are also GLSL/SPIR-V shader reducers in addition to the fuzzer that relies upon randomized metamorphic testing.
At GTC CHINA – taking place December 16-19 at Suzhou Jinji Lake International Conference Center – Henrik Li from NVIDIA, and Ming Dong from Kingsoft, will explain how JX3 Online is using ray tracing for the first time to deliver a top-tier visual experience. In advance of their GTC China talk, NVIDIA talked to Kingsoft Seasun about the project. In connection to Vulkan, NVIDIA asked “JX3 is the first Vulkan game to support ray tracing. Why did your team decide to make this graphical jump?” Kingsoft said they hope to implement cross-platform through Vulkan, and at the same time, they can do ray tracing development on Vulkan. Read the complete transcript from the interview here.
VMA (Vulkan Memory Allocator) is the GPUOpen single-header, MIT-licensed, C++ library for easily and efficiently managing memory allocation for Vulkan games and applications. One year after the previous release, a new version is being published. You can get it now by going to VulkanMemoryAllocator Releases on GitHub and grabbing the latest v2.3.0.
We are just one week away from Halo: Reach coming to PC after a lengthy stint as an Xbox exclusive title. In preparation for the big release, NVIDIA has begun rolling out the Game Ready driver with optimisations. In addition, Quake II RTX has had an upgrade to further improve the ray-traced remaster. This latest driver also brings Image Sharpening support for OpenGL and Vulkan games. (Source: Kitguru.net)
Radeon ProRender enables physically-based GPU rendering through OpenCL. Now with our Full Spectrum Rendering modes, it also brings Vulkan-based ray tracing to Windows and Linux users. This allows the user to set the quality level to a wide spectrum from rasterized to fully path-traced (in OpenCL) render quality, enabling everything from fast viewport previews to accurate final renders.
From the 2019 Reboot Develop Red conference, the complete set of Khronos track talks are now online. Thank you to the Khronos members and developer community for all of your help! We had an excellent line-up of talks:
World War Z – Using Vulkan to Tame the Zombie Swarm – Video & Slides
The developers of the Flax Engine announce that Linux support with Vulkan is coming. This includes high-performant Vulkan rendering and high-DPI monitor support.
Game developers can deploy their games to support desktop gaming on Linux or use special build options to run a game in the cloud for multiplayer and streaming purposes.
