Today, The Khronos Group has released the next big update the Vulkan graphics API specification with Vulkan 1.2 now available. This marks almost four years since 1.0 specification release.
Vulkan 1.2 pulls in 23 extensions into the core of the Vulkan API, bringing access to new hardware functionality, the possibility to improve performance and more. There's a lot of excitement around it, with multiple companies giving their support in the official press release here like Google for Stadia, Stardock Entertainment, NVIDIA, AMD, Arm, Intel and more.
"Vulkan 1.2 brings together nearly two dozen high-priority features developed over the past two years into one, unified core Vulkan standard, setting a cutting-edge bar for functionality in the industry’s only open GPU API for cross-platform 3D and compute acceleration," said Tom Olson, distinguished engineer at Arm, and Vulkan working group chair. "Khronos will continue delivering regular Vulkan ecosystem updates with this proven, developer-focused methodology to both meet the needs and expand the horizons of real-world applications."
Slides from their Launch Presentation.
The good news is that all existing GPUs that support Vulkan are capable of supporting Vulkan 1.2, ensuring no one gets left behind by it. The Khronos Group said that AMD, Arm, Imagination Technologies, Intel and NVIDIA all have Vulkan 1.2 implementations passing the Khronos conformance tests. You can follow their Vulkan 1.2 release tracker here.
NVIDIA, as expected, already have a brand new Vulkan Beta driver out for Linux at version 440.48.02 which pulls in Vulkan 1.2 support. This driver release also adds PRIME Synchronization support for Linux kernel 5.4 and newer.
AMD (RADV) and Intel (ANV) have their changes pulled into Mesa, ready for the next big open source driver release there for Mesa 20 which should be sometime in February/March.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
somebody1121 Jan 15, 2020
Quoting: Guest"Running DX Games on Linux Over Vulkan"
(page 15 of https://www.khronos.org/assets/uploads/apis/Vulkan-1-2-Launch_Jan20.pdf)
If anyone doubts the importance of GNU/Linux and gaming, that they're calling out the explicit ability to run DX titles on "Linux" in Vulkan standards updates shows that the industry most definitely has an interest.
That's great, I expect to grow with time. Also i find interesting to see on page 4 Metro exodus using Vulkan. I hope it's for a linux port (the other two have a native one), not only for stadia...
Mohandevir Jan 15, 2020
Quoting: somebody1121Also i find interesting to see on page 4 Metro exodus using Vulkan. I hope it's for a linux port (the other two have a native one), not only for stadia...
We might have an answer to that on February 15.
Last edited by Mohandevir on 15 January 2020 at 4:31 pm UTC
Quoting: somebody1121It means Stadia, same for Borderlands 3 and Destiny 2.Quoting: Guest"Running DX Games on Linux Over Vulkan"
(page 15 of https://www.khronos.org/assets/uploads/apis/Vulkan-1-2-Launch_Jan20.pdf)
If anyone doubts the importance of GNU/Linux and gaming, that they're calling out the explicit ability to run DX titles on "Linux" in Vulkan standards updates shows that the industry most definitely has an interest.
That's great, I expect to grow with time. Also i find interesting to see on page 4 Metro exodus using Vulkan. I hope it's for a linux port (the other two have a native one), not only for stadia...
Even if they don't come to the Linux desktop (not right now anyway...), an industry shift to Vulkan is going to be a big help anyway. That should be celebrated, open APIs are where we want game development to go.
Last edited by Liam Dawe on 15 January 2020 at 4:36 pm UTC
Comandante Ñoñardo Jan 16, 2020
Quoting: mrdeathjrd9vk still works with this driver version
Isn't Bombshell using DX11?
Last edited by Shmerl on 16 January 2020 at 6:41 am UTC
Quoting: ShmerlQuoting: mrdeathjrd9vk still works with this driver version
Isn't Bombshell using DX11?
have both modes dx9 and dx11, also have too x86 and x86_64 binaries
^_^
Last edited by mrdeathjr on 16 January 2020 at 8:54 am UTC
Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoAnd... there is a new Nvidia driver in the Ubuntu ppa
Wait, what? A Vulkan Beta driver in the PPA. First time that has ever happened and I'm wondering if this wasn't a mistake.
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