Vulkan SDK, Tooling, Samples & Developer Guide Updated For Ray-Tracing

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Vulkan SDK, Tooling, Samples & Developer Guide Updated For Ray-Tracing

Vulkan 1.2.162 was released at the end of November with the ratified Vulkan ray-tracing extension for multi-vendor use. The Khronos Group today is announcing the updated Vulkan SDK, tooling, code samples, and developer guide today with ray-tracing coverage included...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Vulkan-Ray-Tracing-Assets

[cl333r]

And the actual link to the Vulkan SDK is:

https://vulkan.lunarg.com/sdk/home#linux

PS: Michael sometimes is so busy posting backlinks that forgets to think about the readers.

[schmidtbag]

I'm honestly surprised Linux got raytracing support so soon. I was thinking it was going to take at least another year. But, I still feel it's going to be another year or two until RT becomes properly optimized, so I'm still not going to treat it as a high priority.

[baryluk]

I'm honestly surprised Linux got raytracing support so soon. I was thinking it was going to take at least another year. But, I still feel it's going to be another year or two until RT becomes properly optimized, so I'm still not going to treat it as a high priority.

Nvidia drivers supported raytracing on Linux for over the year now.

[schmidtbag]

Nvidia drivers supported raytracing on Linux for over the year now.

If I'm not mistaken, it only has Vulkan RT support until very recently.

[baryluk]

If I'm not mistaken, it only has Vulkan RT support until very recently.

You are mistaken.

Vulkan RT on Linux on Nvidia hardware was available since 2018-09-19 , starting with Nvidia drivers version 410.57 . Support for pre-Pascal hardware via emulation in shaders, was added on Linux in 418.52.05 in April 2019. (it was added to Windows Vulkan drivers a bit earlier). People were for example playing Q2VKPT already in January 2019 on Linux with hardware enabled raytracing on Nvidia hardware.