While we are approaching 2020 and the four year anniversary since the Vulkan 1.0 launch, one aspect that has been a bit disappointing has been the lack of not seeing quicker uptake by various Linux window managers / compositors in at least offering a Vulkan code path. One of the best examples of a Vulkan-powered compositor with that has been the independent ChamferWM.

Vulkan 1.1.130 is out today as the newest update to this graphics API that fixes a wide variety of documentation issues and areas in need of clarifications while also introducing a new extension.

Vulkan 1.1.129 is out this morning as another weekly update to this graphics API specification and in tow comes one new extension.

The open-source vkBasalt project was started as a layer implementing Contrast Adaptive Sharpening (akin to Radeon Image Sharpening) for any Vulkan-using GPU/driver/software. The vkBasalt project then picked up FXAA support for this Vulkan post-processing layer while now a new release is out with more functionality added.

Vulkan 1.1.128 is out with various corrections and clarifications to this graphics/compute API specification but it also comes with one exciting new extension.

The DXVK Direct3D 10/11 over Vulkan implementation to date has been built as a Windows library run under Wine along with the game/software being rendered for converting the calls to Vulkan for execution by the host drivers. There is now experimental work for building DXVK as a native Linux library for converting D3D10/D3D11 calls to Vulkan outside of Wine.

The OGRE open-source 3D graphics engine that is used by many games as well as different simulation / educational / interactive / visualization software is working on enabling Vulkan API support.

Vulkan 1.1.127 is out this morning as the latest routine update to the specification for this high-performance graphics API.

The open-source vkBasalt project is the independent effort implementing AMD Radeon Image Sharpening / Contrast Adaptive Sharpening technique as a Vulkan post-processing layer that can be used regardless of the (Vulkan-powered) game. With vkBasalt 0.1 also now comes the ability to apply FXAA.

The Khronos Group has launched the Vulkan Unified Samples Repository, a Git repository on GitHub for Khronos-reviewed, high-quality Vulkan code samples.

The open-source MoltenVK is out with another new update based against the Vulkan 1.1.126 specification and allowing the Vulkan API to be used on Apple's macOS and iOS by mapping those calls to the underlying Metal graphics drivers.

Building off yesterday's DXVK 1.4.4 release, D9VK 0.30 is out as the similar project that implements the Direct3D 9 API atop Vulkan.

Philip Rebohle has released his latest weekly update to DXVK for accelerating Direct3D 10/11 games using Vulkan as a big boost for Steam Play (Proton) and Wine.

SwiftShader had traditionally been about OpenGL and Direct3D over CPUs as a fallback while in recent years Google has been focused on making it viable for Vulkan. Recently SwiftShader reached Vulkan 1.1 conformance, but besides being conformant to the standard it's also showing it has some CPU performance potential.

There was a recent Khronos meet-up in Munich where Maik Klein of Embark Studios talked about their work on bringing a sub-set of the Rust programming language to Vulkan (SPIR-V) enabled GPUs.

AMD's Radeon Image Sharpening feature is designed to improve image quality with minimal performance costs. However, it is only supported by Radeon Polaris / Vega / Navi graphics cards and only under Microsoft Windows 10. An independent open-source project has implemented contrast adaptive sharpening support for Vulkan that is similar to Radeon Image Sharpening but will work for any Vulkan-enabled GPU -- including NVIDIA GPUs.

Succeeding Vulkan 1.1.124 one week later is now Vulkan 1.1.125 with a lone new extension.

While longtime X11 developer Keith Packard is now working for SiFive on RISC-V processors by day, he's still involved in the Linux graphics world through his contract work for Valve. At the XDC2019 conference earlier this month he presented on display timing, the current Linux plumbing for it, and also bringing up Vulkan will better support variable rate displays in the future.

Vulkan 1.1.124 is out this Sunday evening with two new extensions.

DXVK 1.4.2 is out as another weekly update to this Direct3D 11 over Vulkan translation library used by Wine / Proton for accelerating Windows games on Linux.

D9VK 0.21 is out today as the newest feature release for this project implementing the Direct3D 9 API over Vulkan.

Vulkan 1.1.123 is the latest weekly update to this high performance graphics API and it's formally introducing two more extensions.

A new release of MoltenVK is now available that is updated against Vulkan 1.1.121 for allowing much of this graphics/compute API to function under Apple's macOS and iOS platforms by remapping the Vulkan calls to Metal.

Linux/open-source fans don't at least have to hear "Imagination Technologies" or PowerVR as often as in the past, but today's Vulkan 1.1.122 specification update does publicly document Imagination's VK_IMG_format_pvrtc extension that remains "Imagination Technologies Proprietary" licensed.

The increasingly used Godot open-source game engine has been working on porting to Vulkan as part of Godot 4.0. With much of the lower-level and 2D bits in good standing, work on their 3D rendering support with Vulkan has begun.

SwiftShader. Google's CPU-based implementation that originally was focused on OpenGL ES and Direct3D 9, now has Vulkan 1.1 support in tow.

Joshua Ashton has released D9VK 0.20 "Frog Cookie" as the newest version of this project mapping Direct3D 9 over Vulkan to help improve the Windows gaming on Linux experience.

Vulkan 1.1.121 is the newest Sunday morning update to the Vulkan graphics/compute API. In addition to various bug fixes/clarifications to the documentation, there is a new Vulkan extension around device coherent memory support from AMD.

Vulkan 1.1.120 is out as the newest weekly update to the Vulkan graphics API.

NVIDIA engineers continue to be among those in the Vulkan technical sub-group working to advance machine learning for this API.