Mesa's Radeon "RADV" Driver Can Now Handle Cyberpunk 2077 Ray-Tracing

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Mesa's Radeon "RADV" Driver Can Now Handle Cyberpunk 2077 Ray-Tracing

Merged on Thursday to Mesa 23.1 was implementing VK_EXT_pipeline_library_group_handles using hashed stages with support for caching and replay. What makes this work notable is that it in turn allows the popular game Cyberpunk 2077 running with Steam Play / VKD3D-Proton on Linux to begin enjoying ray-tracing support...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Mesa-RADV-Cyberpunk-2077-RT

[rhysperry111]

The people who contribute to Mesa are so god damn awesome. Every single release seems to have cool new features, whether they are for performance or compatibility.

If any of them happen to be reading this, we love you <3

[aufkrawall]

Nice progress mark. But that progress rate is a bit worrisome, like if things like RT or VK_EXT_graphics_pipeline_library would require a way bigger staff size to get there in time.

[TemplarGR]

Nice progress mark. But that progress rate is a bit worrisome, like if things like RT or VK_EXT_graphics_pipeline_library would require a way bigger staff size to get there in time.

Why? Ray tracing is not that complex, driver wise, to implement.

[dlq84]

Nice progress mark. But that progress rate is a bit worrisome, like if things like RT or VK_EXT_graphics_pipeline_library would require a way bigger staff size to get there in time.

"VK_EXT_pipeline_library_group_handles was introduced in Vulkan 1.3.240 back in January"

And now merged for the next release already, how can you even consider this slow? The spec was released after they cut the 23.0 release so they couldn't just add it to that. It has more to do with release schedule rather than "progress rate".

[aufkrawall]

"VK_EXT_pipeline_library_group_handles was introduced in Vulkan 1.3.240 back in January"

I didn't mention that one.

[Karmux]

To me RT even in Windows is fps killer that barely gives any visual improvements. My opinion is based entirely on Youtube comparisons and tests. Great to see that Linux is catching up with new graphics technologies and hopefully fps cost of RT will lessen also in general with future GPUs.

[schmidtbag]

I think this is excellent progress for a project AMD isn't too involved in (compared to amdvlk).

[aufkrawall]

To me RT even in Windows is fps killer that barely gives any visual improvements. My opinion is based entirely on Youtube comparisons and tests.

As a self-proclaimed "RT advocate" I won't be telling you otherwise. I like it in a number of titles, but it definitely is garbage in too many games. Also in CP77, it's flawed and well below its potential.

[kiffmet]

Will these Vulkan extensions also be useful outside of VKD3D? I figure, it could allow devs who want to offer a DX12 and a Vulkan renderer a more similar programming style and reduce the amount of work and refactoring needed. I'm not a graphics programmer however, so that is just an assumption. Please correct me if I'm wrong.