NVIDIA Vulkan Beta 455.50.12 rolls out with new Vulkan Video extensions

As expected, NVIDIA continue to be at the forefront of new and improved Vulkan support as they've today rolled out the 455.50.12 Vulkan Beta Driver. This is to go along with the announcement of Vulkan Video and Vulkan 1.2.175 that were put out today too.

Here's all that's new with it:

• Provisional Vulkan Video extensions:
  • An introduction to Vulkan Video
  • Vulkan Video sample
  • VK_KHR_video_queue
  • VK_KHR_video_decode_queue
  • VK_KHR_video_encode_queue
  • VK_EXT_video_decode_h264
  • VK_EXT_video_decode_h265
  • VK_EXT_video_encode_h264
  • VK_NV_video_queue
• VK_EXT_color_write_enable
• VK_EXT_vertex_input_dynamic_state
• VK_EXT_ycbcr_2plane_444_formats
• VK_NV_inherited_viewport_scissor

NVIDIA today also released their own Vulkan Video sample application, which is supported across Linux and Windows.

Reminder: This special Vulkan beta driver is where all the shiny new stuff goes in before making its way into the stable release for everyone. Really, it's mostly aimed at developers and serious enthusiasts. Unless you need what's in them, it's generally best to use the stable drivers.

The newest stable versions of the main NVIDIA driver for Linux are at 460.67 released on March 18, 2021 from their "Production Branch" series or 455.45.01 released on October 17, 2020 from their "New Feature" series. Confused? It's a lot of numbers to remember but both Production and New Feature series are fine for normal use.

Additionally, if you missed the recent news: Xwayland work for hardware accelerated NVIDIA support has been merged in and will hopefully supported in the upcoming NVIDIA 470 releasing.