Intel's Vulkan Linux Driver Now Enables Mesh Shader Support By Default

Intel's open-source "ANV" Vulkan driver used by Linux systems is now enabling by default the VK_EXT_mesh_shader extension for their graphics processors with mesh shader support.

Last year Intel landed Vulkan mesh shader support but due to bugs ultimately coming about they decided not to expose it by default. With improvements over time and some very recent mesh shader fixes, Intel engineers are now comfortable enabling the Vulkan mesh shader support out-of-the-box with Mesa 23.3 rather than requiring the "ANV_MESH_SHADER" as is needed for current Mesa releases.

The main issue that had been blocking VK_EXT_mesh_shader by default were failures when using mesh shaders with graphics pipeline libraries (GPL) being used together. But with this commit merged earlier today, VK_EXT_mesh_shader is now in good shape for modern Intel graphics users on Linux.

Vulkan mesh shading support is useful for a number of games on Linux. Mesa 23.3 is shaping up to be another exciting feature release that will debut as stable in Q4.