Vulkan tagged news

    vulkan, drivers    

AMD released a new version of their graphics driver v19.6.2 on Monday June 17th. With with release they have added support for 5 new Vulkan extensions: VK_EXT_full_screen_exclusive, VK_EXT_host_query_reset, VK_EXT_separate_stencil_usage, VK_KHR_uniform_buffer_standard_layout and VK_AMD_display_native_hdr. Learn more with a brief description of what each extension does and how to use them on the GPUOpen blog.

    vulkan, webgl, gltf, openxr, 3dcommerce, exploratory    

With the growth and adoption in mobile, web, and immersive platforms, 3D is poised to grow as a new shopping medium. Product manufacturers, retailers, marketing, and advertising platforms can use 3D to show virtual products to end-users to help them better understand a product online prior to purchasing and to help build brand loyalty after purchase. The Khronos has a track record of openness and responsiveness, with a well-proven IP Framework and multi-company governance model. The Khronos 3D Commerce Exploratory Working Group could directly leverage the work of several existing Khronos Working Groups, including: glTF, WebGL, Vulkan, and OpenXR. With enough industry support, this Exploratory Group will evolve into a Working Group to work on the development of such standards.

    vulkan    

Q2VKPT – short for “Quake II Vulkan Path Tracing” – was a research project led by Christoph Schied, an engineer eager to bend the possibility space of computer graphics. Using id’s 22-year-old game as a foundation, Christoph was able to make real-time path tracing a reality on consumer hardware. His project caught the attention of Quake fans, tech journalists, and NVIDIA. Learn more about Q2VKPT in this twenty minute video from GDC.

    vulkan

Tips and Tricks: Vulkan Dos and Don’ts

The increased performance potential of modern graphics APIs is coupled with a dramatically increased level of developer responsibility. Optimal use of Vulkan is not a trivial concept, especially in the context of a large engine, and information about how to maximize performance is still somewhat sparse. The following document is a compilation of wisdom from some of the Vulkan experts at NVIDIA. It is not exhaustive, and is expected to be augmented over time, but should be a useful stepping stone for developers looking to utilize Vulkan to its full potential.

    vulkan

Version 1.93 of the Vulkan Hardware Capability Viewer is now available for all platforms (Windows, Linux, Android) at https://vulkan.gpuinfo.org/download.php.

This version fully supports Vulkan 1.1 and adds support for reading additional features and properties for the following extensions:

- VK_EXT_fragment_shader_interlock
- VK_NV_shader_sm_builtins
- VK_KHR_depth_stencil_resolve properties
- VK_EXT_buffer_device_address features
- VK_EXT_pci_bus_info features

Additional changes for this version:

- Updated to Vulkan headers 1.1.110
- Reworked Android UI/UX

This version has also been published to Google Play and can be installed directly from there, old version will be automatically upgraded.

    vulkan, spirv

The complete video from Vulkanised 2019 in Cambridge UK is now online. If you were not able to get to this May event, you may now watch the seven Vulkan sessions online and follow along with the slide presentations:

  • Vulkan Update – Kris Rose, Khronos Group Developer Relations: slides, video
  • Vulkan: Live Long and Optimise – Michael Parkin-White and Calum Shields, Samsung Electronics: slides, video
  • Vulkan Best Practices - Attilio Provenzano, Arm: slides, video
  • SPIRV-Cross Taking SPIR-V to the next level – Hans Kristian Arntzen, SPIRV-Cross: slides, video
  • Cross Process Sharing and Direct Mode with Vulkan – Jacob Bornecrantz, Collabora: slides, video
  • Optimising a AAA Vulkan Title on Desktop – Lou Kramer, AMD: slides, video
  • Panel Discussion - Alex Smith (Feral Interactive), Hans-Kristian Arntzen (SPIRV-Cross), Jan-Harald Fredriksen (Arm), Lou Kramer (AMD), Alon Or-bach, (Samsung Electronics): video

    vulkan, drivers, phoronix    

The latest update of the AMDVLK Open Source Vulkan driver sees several notable additions. The driver now officially supports VK_EXT_host_query_reset, VK_EXT_separate_stencil_usage, and VK_KHR_uniform_buffer_standard_layout extensions and updates the Vulkan API headers against version 1.1.108. Read more about this update at Phoronix or download the driver on GitHub.

    vulkan, opencl, opengl, drivers    

Intel Releases 26.20.100.6861 Graphics Drivers - OpenGL, Vulkan and OpenCL

Intel has released their 26.20.100.6861 graphics drivers. OpenGL has been bumped to 4.6, which adds an extension to use Vulkan’s SPIR-V shaders in OpenGL. Vulkan has been given four new extensions: VK_EXT_depth_clip_enable, VK_EXT_host_query_reset, VK_EXT_scalar_block_layout, and VK_KHR_shader_float16_int8. The OpenCL kernel compile times have been reduced.

    vulkan, opencl    

Imagination Technologies announced that it has joined SiFive’s DesignShare ecosystem, giving system designers easy access to its industry-leading PowerVR GPU and neural network accelerator (NNA) IP cores. The PowerVR GPU will be the first fully featured GPU supporting the Vulkan applications programming interface (API) available via the DesignShare ecosystem. Mohit Gupta, vice president, SoC IP solutions, strategy and business development, SiFive; said: “We’re delighted to welcome Imagination into the DesignShare movement. Imagination is renowned for its industry-leading GPU IP and award-winning NNA IP. PowerVR’s support of APIs such as Vulkan, OpenCL, Android NNAPI, and SYCL will deliver new opportunities for customer growth for the ecosystem. Together, we hope to inspire customers to challenge the norm and develop groundbreaking custom silicon. We’re excited to see the creativity that our collaboration inspires.”

    vulkan, event

Reboot Develop Blue’s inaugural technical track was a huge success! Thank you to the Khronos members and developer community for all of your help! We had an excellent line-up of talks and we look forward to the follow-up 3-day event, Reboot Develop Red, in Banff, Canada starting October 30th 2019. We will host another set of excellent talks on Khronos Standards. We will launch a new AR/VR track to cater to the specific design and technical considerations of the XR industry, and more. We hope to see you there! Presentations from the event can be found here. Videos coming soon!

    vulkan, windows, macOS, linux

Back in March 2019 it was announced that Xplane Plane-Maker and Airfoil Maker ran in Vulkan on Mac, Windows and Linux with both NVIDIA and AMD drivers. Since that initial update, it has been announced that the full sim now runs natively on Vulkan. Flying with Vulkan is now possible on AMD, NVidia, and Intel drivers. VR is currently not support on Vulkan, but it’s coming!

    vulkan, windows, drivers, linux    

Machine Learning Acceleration in Vulkan with Cooperative Matrices

NVIDIA Tech Blog: Learn more about machine learning acceleration in Vulkan with cooperative matrices by NVIDIA experts. If the Cooperative Matrix Vulkan extension is interesting to you, you can try it out right now! It is shipping for Turing-based GPUs in NVIDIA driver versions 419.09 (Windows) and 418.31.03 (Linux). Links to all the relevant specifications are here.