Intel Graphics Compiler 1.0.4944 Brings Many Minor Optimizations

The Intel Graphics Compiler (IGC) that is used by their Linux OpenCL/Level-Zero compute stack as well as now being used by their Windows graphics driver and potentially their Linux OpenGL/Vulkan drivers in the future is out with a new release.

IGC releases tend to come frequent with a large team working on this open-source graphics compiler code while the 1.0.4944 milestone is a bit of a larger release.

IGC 1.0.4944 has a lot of code refactoring as they are preparing to rebase their compiler against the upstream LLVM 11 code. IGC 1.0.4944 also has multiple improvements to its vector back-end, adding SPIRV-LLVM-Translator, a new option to force thread group sizes, and "many minor optimizations" and code improvements. There are also many fixes.

More details on IGC 1.0.4944 and its many changes via GitHub.