AMDVLK 2023.Q3.2 Released With Quadbuffer Stereo, Quake 2 RTX Optimizations

AMD used to release new AMDVLK Vulkan driver updates on a near weekly basis for Linux users but that has slowed down for a while. We are approaching the end of Q3 and now AMDVLK 2023.Q3.2 has been published as their first new open-source driver release since early August.

With the time that has passed since the prior release, AMDVLK 2023.Q3.2 is at least on the heavier side for changes. AMDVLK 2023.Q3.2 brings support for quadbuffer stereo, Quake 2 RTX ray-tracing performance tuning, reducing the RS64 vs. FP32 mode overhead, reducing the AMDVLK binary size, and other optimizations.

[New features and improvement]

- Update Khronos Vulkan Headers to 1.3.261
- Support Quadbuffer Stereo
- Performance tuning for Quake2 RTX RT
- Reduce RS64 vs F32 mode overhead
- Add a setting to allow changing PWS mode
- Reduce amdvlk binary size
- Optimize the clear to single shaders
- Support dynamic sample buffer info for Extended_dynamic_state3 extension

[Issues fixed]

- Driver still reports HDR formats even when HDR mode is disabled
- CTS failure in dEQP-VK.pipeline.monolithic.executable_properties.graphics.vertex_stage*
- vkCreateRenderPass2 Crash
- Debug markers missing in RGD

The AMDVLK 2023.Q3.2 Vulkan driver in source form as well as pre-built binaries for RHEL/CentOS and Ubuntu Linux systems can be downloaded from GitHub.

Most Linux gamers/enthusiasts will continue to find the best support and performance by making use of Mesa's RADV Vulkan driver rather than AMDVLK, but for those that prefer this official AMD driver or for comparison purposes, this new release is now available. I'll be working on some fresh AMDVLK vs. RADV Vulkan benchmarks soon.