RADV Driver now supports Vulkan Extended Dynamic State
The newest addition to Mesa’s RADV Radeon Vulkan driver is support for the recently published VK_EXT_extended_dynamic_state extension.
Vulkan tagged news
Intel Graphics Performance Analyzers 2020.2 (Intel GPA) now supports Vulkan 1.2
Intel GPA provides tools for graphics analysis and optimizations for making games and other graphics-intensive applications run even faster. In the latest release of Intel GPA 2020.2, Intel introduces support for Vulkan 1.2 (SDK 1.2.135) workloads on Windows 10, the ability to view CreateInfo parameters for resources now available for Vulkan and D3D12 workloads and the ability to view metadata information for SwapChains (Vulkan and D3D12) and Render Passes (Vulkan). Read more to learn about all the features this release has to offer, or go directly to the downloads page.
JetPack SDK released with Vulkan 1.2 support
NVIDIA JetPack 4.4 SDK went live for all NVIDIA Jetson modules and developer kits with full Vulkan 1.2 support. The open standard Vulkan 1.2 API enables embedded developers to access the full power of NVIDIA Jetson GPUs for 3D rendering and compute.
New ASTC Guide Released by Arm
Arm has released a new comprehensive ASTC Guide to help developers who wish to use ASTC technology to compress textures for 3D games and applications. The new guide contains a detailed ASTC algorithm overview, explains ASTC benefits, provides developers advice for achieving best compression results, and contains information on popular encoding tools—as well as usage with game engines.
NVIDIA 440.66.17 Vulkan Beta Driver released
NVIDIA released a fresh developer-focused Vulkan Beta Driver with support for more extensions and a little performance work included. The NVIDIA driver now supports:
The driver also improves the performance of vkCmdMultiDraw*IndirectCount on Pascal and earlier GPUs (Source: Gaming On Linux).
Vulkan Samples: Bandwidth and Throughput Optimizations for Mobile
While powerful, the Vulkan API can be quite complex for mobile developers. At GDC 2019, Arm released a set of Vulkan samples that illustrated a comprehensive list of best practice recommendations. Since then, these have been donated to Khronos Group and have been improved with contributions from other GPU vendors, and the well-known samples from Sascha Willems. The repository contains samples that provide a reference for API features and new Vulkan extensions, as well as performance samples focusing on CPU and GPU optimizations. This blog covers a few of these performance samples, focusing on considerations around limited power and therefore bandwidth on mobile devices with tile-based rendering.
FFmpeg 4.3 released with Vulkan Support
FFmpeg 4.3 open-source multimedia framework has been released with Vulkan Support. On Linux, the Vulkan-powered AMD AMF encoder is now supported. Complete release notes are available in the project changelog, with some addition details listed on Phoronix.
Raspberry Pi Vulkan update: now with added source code
Raspberry Pi announced the Vulkan effort for Raspberry Pi 4 almost five months ago. A progress update in the blog shows some of the popular Vulkan demos by Sascha Willems running on Raspberry Pi 4. Starting today, development of the driver is moving to an open repository. You can find instructions on how to build and install the driver here.
New Vulkan SDKs Support DXC and New Capture/Replay Tool
LunarG has released new Windows, Linux, and macOS SDKs for Vulkan header 1.2.141.0. The DirectX Shader Compiler (DXC) executable and GFXReconstruct, a new Vulkan capture/replay tool, debut with this SDK. Read on for information about other new features in this SDK.
Google Summer of Code 2020 with OpenCL, OpenGL, OpenXR, SPIR, Vulkan and WebGL
Google Summer of Code announced their projects last month and on June 1st the programming has begun. Projects this year include OpenCL, OpenGL, OpenXR, SPIR, Vulkan and WebGL. On September 8th, the results of GSoC will be announced.
Path of Exile 3.10.2 Patch adds beta support for Vulkan
Path of Exile has released their 3.10.2 Patch, which includes a beta version of our Vulkan renderer. To access the new Vulkan renderer, launch the game and go to the Graphics Options screen. Then change the Renderer option to “Vulkan (Beta)”. It should take effect without you having to relaunch Path of Exile. “Our philosophy with the Vulkan renderer is frame rate consistency, so that players can enjoy Path of Exile without stuttering/spikes at arbitrary times.”
Steam Beta adds Vulkan shader processing
In the latest Steam Beta from May 25, a new option in the Shader Pre-Caching settings, allows you to enable “Allow background processing of Vulkan shaders”. This is a step towards making Steam games on Linux run smoother. For those interested in a little background, it’s using the Fossilize library and Vulkan layer which you can find on Valve’s GitHub.
NVIDIA Announces Nsight Graphics 2020.3
Nsight Graphics 2020.3 is now available for download. Applications that use the provisional VK_KHR_ray_tracing extension can be captured, profiled and exported to a C++ Capture. While the extension is still evolving, the NVIDIA Vulkan Beta Driver will allow for experimentation before it is fully ratified (and is required).
Vulkan and OpenGL Q&A at NVIDIA GTC 2020
Connect directly with NVIDIA Developer Technology Engineers on OpenGL and Vulkan-related topics to get answers to all of your questions. Whether you have questions about regular graphics use, compute shaders, ray tracing, or interop between the apis, we’re here to help you with questions around the Khronos graphics apis. Space is limited to 150 people, so don’t wait to sign-up.
The Half Life: Alyx Workshop adds a native Linux version of the game using the Vulkan
The Half Life: Alyx Workshop update adds a native Linux version of the game using the Vulkan rendering API, as well as optional support for using Vulkan on Windows. Depending on your system, you may experience better performance using Vulkan, especially if your system is closer to minimum spec.