Mesa 20.1 Features Include Big Improvements For Open-Source Intel, Radeon Graphics Drivers

Written by Michael Larabel in Mesa on 27 May 2020 at 08:51 AM EDT. 5 Comments
MESA
The release of Mesa 20.1 is imminent as the latest quarterly feature update to this collection of open-source OpenGL/Vulkan drivers predominantly in use by Linux systems. Here is a look at the many exciting improvements with Mesa 20.1.

Highlights of the Mesa 20.1 new features and improvements include:

- A Vulkan device selection layer for better dealing with multi-GPU setups.

- NIR vectorization support as a significant Intel graphics optimization.

- Continued work on ACO, the promising AMD back-end alternative to AMDGPU LLVM for the RADV driver.

- Gen11 performance optimizations across multiple fronts.

- Continued Intel Gen12 prepping including for Xe/DG1 discrete graphics hardware.

- Faster Intel Gen7 Vulkan compute performance.

- Radeon displayable DCC for Navi 12/14.

- RADV optimizations for id Tech games and other Vulkan titles under Wine / Steam Play.

- Experimental NIR support for the classic R600 Gallium3D driver.

- Initial Arm Bifrost rendering support with Panfrost.

- Shared Virtual Memory support for OpenCL Clover.

- Geometry shader support for TURNIP, the open-source Vulkan driver for Qualcomm Adreno hardware.

- More OpenGL threading improvements.

- RadeonSI has a new option for better performance in CAD software.

- Improvements to its soft FP64 implementation.

- RADV has been expanding its profiling capabilities.

- A RADV option to zero out the vRAM.

- LLVMpipe tessellation shader support.

- Intel Blackhole render support.

Mesa 20.2 meanwhile is the version that has already been in development the past month on Mesa Git master for debut around the end of August.
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Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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