New Vulkan Extension Proposed For DirectFB Support

The DirectFB library once popular with embedded systems and other environments needing formerly a full X11 stack (or now, Wayland) remains in an abandoned state with no real upstream development any longer and the project site long dead, but with a newly proposed Vulkan extension could allow this modern graphics API to run on top of it.

VK_EXT_directfb_surface was proposed for allowing Vulkan to support surfaces for DirectFB consumption.

Embedded Linux graphics developer Nicolas Caramelli proposed this extension for allowing Vulkan applications/games to run atop DirectFB. Besides the extension proposal, Caramelli has also modified some DirectFB sample applications for demonstration purposes with Vulkan.

The proposed extension can be found via GitHub. If accepted upstream, this would allow Vulkan on DirectFB alongside the existing Windows, Android, X11, Wayland, Nintendo, and other platform coverage. That still leaves the applications/games/engines to make use of the extension however for the platform support.