Vulkan 1.3.263 Released With A New NVIDIA Extension

There wasn't any big Vulkan spec update for SIGGRAPH this year but the frequent point releases continue rolling on for this high performance graphics and compute API.

As a rare Saturday morning release, Vulkan 1.3.263 is out as the newest revision. Vulkan 1.3.263 brings several fixes and clarifications to the spec -- just four GitHub issues resolved and then another handful of internal items being addressed.

There is one new extension this go-around and that's VK_NV_descriptor_pool_overallocation for Vulkan 1.3.263. VK_NV_descriptor_pool_overallocation is a new extension from NVIDIA for adding the ability to request more sets or descriptors to be allocated than were initially specified at creation time. The extension spec explains:

"There are scenarios where the application does not know ahead of time how many descriptor sets it may need to allocate from a descriptor pool, or how many descriptors of any of the descriptor types it may need to allocate from the descriptor pool.

This extension gives applications the ability to request the implementation allow more sets or descriptors to be allocated than initially specified at descriptor pool creation time, subject to available resources."

More details on the alterations with Vulkan 1.3.263 via the Vulkan-Docs GitHub.

A NVIDIA 535.43.09 Vulkan beta driver release is also expected to occur imminently with the latest Vulkan fixes and extension work there for Linux gamers/users.