NVIDIA 515.49.06 Linux Vulkan Beta Driver Released

For those enjoying some Linux gaming over the US holiday weekend, NVIDIA issued a rare Saturday driver update in the form of new Vulkan driver betas for Windows and Linux.

The NVIDIA 515.49.06 Vulkan driver beta was released for Linux users while on the Windows side their new release is v516.63.

This new NVIDIA Vulkan beta update does introduce VK_EXT_shader_module_identifier support as spec'ed out in Vulkan 1.3.219 that was released this week. The VK_EXT_shader_module_identifier extension was worked on by Valve, NVIDIA, Igalia, Collabora, and other Linux driver developers. This shader module identifier extension will be used by VKD3D-Proton and thus an important extension for the Vulkan Linux drivers to support for ensuring an optimal Steam Play (Proton) Linux gaming experience.

Today's Vulkan beta driver update also has several different Vulkan bug fixes.

NVIDIA continues doing a punctual job issuing frequent Vulkan driver betas and keeping up with new extensions.

The new NVIDIA Vulkan beta driver for Windows and Linux can be downloaded via developer.nvidia.com. NVIDIA did publish as well the adjoining Open GPU Kernel Module update that is compatible with this binary driver update.