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 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 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.”
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.
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).
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 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.
The Khronos Group is evaluating possible new helper libraries for the Vulkan API and would appreciate your input through the survey link below. By participating in this survey you will help us to understand the level of demand and priorities for any future helper libraries we may develop. If you have any questions, please contact Kris Rose on Slack.
Diligent Engine was just tagged 2.4.e on Github. With this release comes support for Vulkan on Android. Last October Diligent Engine 2.4.c saw support for macOS via MoltenVK.
Godot Engine has started up their Vulkan Progress Reports after 3 month hiatus. GamingOnLinux touts Godot Engine as making more impressive progress towards Vulkan API support. Godot 4.0 will see many improvements including: using a special screen-space filter to correctly simulate roughness; GLSL shaders (not Godot shaders, real GLSL 4.50+Vulkan extensions) can now be imported and will be automatically imported and converted to SPIR-V when found; allowing you to have low level access to the rendering APIs. Check out the report to learn more.
Ubisoft announced Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint on PC now supports Vulkan. You may now choose between DirectX 11 or Vulkan from your launcher upon launching the game. WCCFTech has done up a performance review. The Anvil Next 2.0 engine was officially ported to the Vulkan API for this title.
NVIDIA has released an update for their Vulkan driver. This update includes a bug fix and three new extensions:
Diligent Engine is a modern cross-platform low-level graphics library and rendering framework. In a recent release, Diligent Engine enabled support of Vulkan on Android to bring the full power of next-gen APIs to mobile platforms. It also added long-requested C API to better suit the needs of graphics software developers. Diligent Engine is free software and its full source code is available on GitHub.
This year IWOCL & SYCLcon 2020 had a record number of high quality submissions in all categories; research papers, technical presentations, tutorials and posters. These video presentations from the IWOCL & SYCLcon 2020 program of papers, tech. presentations and posters are now online.
Mesa 20.1 has landed a Vulkan device selection layer for choosing between multiple Vulkan-enabled GPUs on a given system as the default device. This Vulkan layer allows for picking the default GPU for X11/Wayland/device sessions, similar to DRI PRIME for OpenGL. This Vulkan layer first checks for the MESA_VK_DEVICE_SELECT= environment variable for being pointed towards the GPU/driver to be used, otherwise checks DRI_PRIME and tries to match it to a proper configuration. More details are available on phoronix.