NVK Vulkan Driver Adds Implicit Pipeline Caching To Boost DXVK Performance

Adding to the impressive number of features to be found in this quarter's Mesa 24.1 release is now the open-source NVIDIA "NVK" Vulkan driver supporting implicit pipeline caching.

The Mesa NVK driver now supports implicit pipeline caching in a similar manner to the Radeon RADV driver. This implicit pipeline caching can allow for better performance such as with DXVK where pipeline caching isn't directly used. Thus this is good news for Steam Play Linux gamers wanting to make use of the NVK driver now or in the future as this open-source driver further matures.

As part of enabling this implicit pipeline caching, it was first wired up into Mesa's common Vulkan runtime code and then enabled for NVK. Thus other Mesa Vulkan drivers moving forward can work to leverage this shared functionality too.

The NVK Vulkan implicit pipeline caching support was merged as part of this MR on Monday.

Mesa 24.1 code branching is expected to happen this week (likely tomorrow) while the stable Mesa 24.1 release is hoped for around mid-May. It's quite a big quarterly update especially for the Intel, AMD Radeon, and NVK drivers but also the various other smaller OpenGL/Vulkan drivers too.