RenderDoc 1.6 Released, NVIDIA + AMD + Intel All Primed For Vulkan 1.2

This morning's release of Vulkan 1.2 is off to a great start.

To no surprise, NVIDIA is first out of the gate with a Vulkan 1.2 driver for Windows and Linux. The NVIDIA 440.48.02 Linux driver adds the Vulkan 1.2 support. Additionally, this Vulkan beta driver supports PRIME synchronization when paired with the Linux 5.4 kernel or newer.

There is also RADV Vulkan 1.2 support pending in a merge request along with Intel ANV support under review too for this new Vulkan revision. It's anticipated this Vulkan 1.2 support for the Intel and Radeon open-source Vulkan drivers will be merged quite quickly, in time for the upcoming Mesa 20.0 feature freeze.

The quick turnaround isn't entirely surprising though considering Vulkan 1.2 is largely about promoting existing Vulkan extensions and SPIR-V 1.5 to a core status. These extensions were already wired into the Vulkan drivers during 1.1 point releases and now it's mostly a matter of ensuring all the Vulkan 1.2 conformance tests are passing and taking care of other odds and ends.

In other Vulkan 1.2 adoption news this morning, RenderDoc 1.6 is released. This popular graphics profiler/debugger is out with Vulkan 1.2 support. RenderDoc 1.6 also has some UI improvements, Python API changes, and other additions along with dozens of bug fixes.

UPDATE: That took no time at all... RADV and ANV Vulkan drivers within Mesa 20.0-devel have landed their Vulkan 1.2 support!