oneAPI Level Zero 1.2.3 Released For Intel's Low-Level Interface

Released this week was Intel's open-source oneAPI Level Zero v1.2.3 for the headers and loader based on their public oneAPI Level Zero specification.

With oneAPI Level Zero 1.2.3 they now support the Level Zero 1.1 specification, which is just a minor update over last year's official Level Zero 1.0 specification. The original oneAPI Level Zero specification was tentatively published back at the end of 2019 as Intel's direct-to-metal interfaces with a focus on offload accelerators. This is not to be confused with the oneAPI specification itself, which is working towards its v1.1 release later this calendar year, but is solely about the "Level Zero" specification. Yes, the oneAPI versioning scheme has become rather convoluted across its many different software components and specifications.

For those wanting some weekend technical reading, the latest oneAPI Level Zero specification can be read via spec.oneapi.com.

Besides supporting the Level Zero 1.1 specification, the oneAPI Level Zero 1.2.3 release adds a new environment variable for allowing alternative run-time Level Zero drivers to use on Linux. This new environment variable for allowing the oneAPI Level Zero loader to point to alternative drivers is ZE_ENABLE_ALT_DRIVERS=.

The oneAPI Level Zero 1.2.3 release can be downloaded from GitHub.

The new release does require an updated Intel Compute Runtime stack for hardware support. On that front yesterday marked the Intel Compute Runtime 21.09.19150 release that updates the Intel Graphics Compiler as its only listed change. The Intel Compute Runtime continues to list its Level Zero support as 1.0 in a pre-release stage, while also enjoying OpenCL 3.0 production support)