AMD Open-Source Vulkan “AMDVLK” Driver For Linux Gets Updated With Mesh Shading & Steam Play Support

The initial AMD open-source Vulkan driver update has launched (AMDVLK 2023.Q2.1), allowing Linux users to have another option instead of the Mesa Radeon Vulkan driver (Mesa RADV) or the bundled code that is installed within the standard AMD Radeon Software drivers.

The AMDVLK 2023.Q2.1 driver update, outlined below, shows the improvements, features, and fixes that AMD is providing for new and current users:

Michael Larabel of the Linux Hardware website Phoronix notes that the extensions will benefit AMD open-source users with its support for mesh shading and Steam Play support for DirectX Vulkan (DXVK) and the Steam Play Proton support for Direct 3D 12 to Vulkan translator, also known as VKD3D-Proton.

The AMD Open Source Driver for Vulkan® is an open-source Vulkan driver for Radeon graphics adapters on Linux. It is built on top of AMD's Platform Abstraction Library (PAL), a shared component that is designed to encapsulate certain hardware and OS-specific programming details for many of AMD's 3D and compute drivers. Leveraging PAL can help provide a consistent experience across platforms, including support for recently released GPUs and compatibility with AMD developer tools.

Mesh shading is not new for AMD Radeon graphics cards as the company has used mesh shaders in the RDNA 2 architecture and is found in Navi 2 series GPUs. Additionally, the RADV driver already utilized the VK_EXT_mesh_shader extension in September 2022.

The new AMDVLK 2023.Q2.1 driver update also adds further support for Navi 3x series GPU floating point instructions which were not present until now. All Vulkan API headers are also updated to coincide with today's release.

The new AMDVLK 2023.Q2.1 driver can be downloaded from the official AMDVLK GitHub page as part of the GPUOpen Drivers from AMD's continued support of open-source technology.

News Sources: Phoronix, AMD GPUOpen GitHub