Vulkan 1.2.155 Released With EXT_shader_image_atomic_int64

Vulkan 1.2.155 is out this morning as a small weekly update over last week's spec revision that brought the Vulkan Portability Extension 1.0 for easing software-based Vulkan implementations running atop other graphics APIs.

Vulkan 1.2.155 is quite a tiny release after that big release last week, but there aren't even any documentation corrections/clarifications and just a sole new extension.

That new extension making up the Vulkan 1.2.155 changes is VK_EXT_shader_image_atomic_int64. This multi-vendor extension allows for 64-bit integer atomic support to work on images.

The VK_EXT_shader_image_atomic_int64 extension spec explains, "When working with large 2- or 3-dimensional data sets (e.g. rasterization or screen-space effects), image accesses are generally more efficient than equivalent buffer accesses. This extension allows applications relying on 64-bit integer atomics in this manner to quickly improve performance with only relatively minor code changes. 64-bit integer atomic support is guaranteed for optimally tiled images with the VK_FORMAT_R64_UINT and VK_FORMAT_R64_SINT formats."

The brief 1.2.155 update can be found via GitHub.