MoltenVK Now Supports More Vulkan Extensions, Begins Targeting Metal 3.0

The open-source MoltenVK project that offers Vulkan API support for Apple devices on iOS and macOS is out with a new release for mapping Vulkan atop Apple's Metal graphics/compute stack.

MoltenVK has picked up support for a number of new Vulkan extensions and other fixes, but now does require Apple Metal 3.0. A Metal 3.0 requirement means using Xcode 11 for building and targeting macOS 10.15+ and iOS 13+ for the run-time requirement. MoltenVK still supports their earlier v1.0.36 release without Metal 3.0 for those wanting the older iOS/macOS coverage.

The updated MoltenVK release adds support for Vulkan's device group creation, EXT_metal_surface, post depth coverage, scalar block layout, INTEL shader integer functions2, and other extensions.

There are also many different fixes and various Metal/MSL integration improvements.

More details via GitHub for those cross-platform or Apple focused Vulkan developers.