Vulkan 1.3.289 Further Helps Out With Layered Driver Implementations

Vulkan 1.3.289 was released at the end of last week with a handful of clarifications/corrections to the Vulkan API specification plus one new maintenance extension.

The new extension to Vulkan 1.3.289 is VK_KHR_maintenance7, which is another "maintenance" extension for a bundling of different small fixes/additions to the Vulkan API specification for material not really warranting their own individual extensions.

VK_KHR_maintenance7 brings minor features like new property queries, a query for robust access support when using fragment shading rate attachments, and other minor changes. VK_KHR_maintenance7 was worked on by the likes of Valve -- with both Mike Blumekrantz and Hans-Kristian Arntzen contributing -- as well as additions from AMD, Nintendo, Google, Qualcomm, Huawei, and Khronos.

Arguably the most interesting change with VK_KHR_maintenance7 is a new query for obtaining information on the underlying device(s) in environments where the Vulkan implementation is relying on a layered implementation. One use-case noted was when relying on the Mesa Venus driver for virtualized environments. While the Venus driver itself will continue to be exposed, for those application/game developers wanting to know details about the underlying GPU device/driver, the "VkPhysicalDeviceLayeredApiPropertiesKHR" structure can be used for passing on information around driver layers underneath the top-level Vulkan device.

The rest of the maintenance changes are all rather minor along with the rest of the Vulkan 1.3.289 changes. Details for those interested via this Vulkan-Docs commit.