vulkan

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Kraid is a now a real compiler
2 months ago
- Kraid, the new compiler for the Panfrost driver stack, now passes all 800,000 Vulkan CTS compute shader tests, surpassing the old compiler in a few areas.
- Vertex and fragment shaders are still works in progress, and the generated code quality is intentionally poor to help identify bugs under high register pressure.
- All major compiler components are in place, including an SSA-based register allocator, spiller, 64-bit support, swizzle handling, copy propagation, and 16-bit/8-bit destination support.
- Future work includes writing optimization passes, fine-tuning the register allocator, refining boolean and 8-bit strategies, and completing vertex and fragment shader stages.
- Fragment shaders present additional challenges due to BLEND and ATEST instructions with register allocation implications and the need for an ABI between main and blend shaders.
Valve Sponsors Work Bringing Open-Source RADV Driver to Windows
2 months ago
- Valve is funding Collabora to explore porting the open-source RADV Vulkan driver from Linux to Windows.
- The effort relies on AMD's official Windows kernel driver instead of porting the Linux AMDGPU driver, requiring reverse engineering of proprietary structures.
- A key challenge is the lack of a stable, documented interface, which may need a shim library to handle changes between AMD driver releases.
- The experimental work has successfully demoed Counter-Strike 2 running on Windows with RADV.
Cracking Windows Open: Porting RADV to Win32
2 months ago
- RADV is the open-source Mesa Vulkan driver for AMD GPUs, now the de facto Vulkan driver on Linux after AMD discontinued its proprietary alternative.
- Porting RADV to Windows would enable a shared codebase across platforms, easier debugging, faster fixes, and community contributions benefiting all users.
- Faith Ekstrand's initial work proved feasibility by reverse-engineering the WDDM2 interface, getting a 3D model to display, but with limitations.
- This project improved flexibility, portability, and stability, achieving support for games like Counter-Strike 2, though not yet conformant.
- Challenges included hardware generation differences, MSVC compiler incompatibilities, and opaque vendor-specific data in D3DKMT calls.
- The biggest hurdle is the proprietary kernel driver interface, which relies on fragile reverse-engineered structures with no backward-compatibility guarantee.
- Remaining work includes improving presentation via DXGI swapchains for better performance, potentially requiring AMD and Microsoft involvement.
- The project is sponsored by Valve and aims to motivate collaboration toward a stable open-source Vulkan driver on Windows.
Vulkan Tutorial
2 months ago
- This Vulkan tutorial from 2016 is outdated; readers are directed to https://vulkan.org/learn for current guides.
- Vulkan provides better abstraction of modern GPUs, leading to better performance and less surprising driver behavior compared to OpenGL and Direct3D.
- Vulkan is cross-platform (Windows, Linux, Android) but requires verbose API setup; it targets programmers enthusiastic about high-performance graphics.
- Prerequisites include a Vulkan-compatible GPU, C++17 experience, and basic 3D computer graphics knowledge.
- The tutorial uses the original C API and covers setting up Vulkan SDK, GLM, and GLFW; each chapter builds toward rendering a triangle.
- Future chapters expand to linear transformations, textures, and 3D models; the tutorial is community-driven with feedback via GitHub.
Measuring Input Latency with VK_EXT_present_timing
3 months ago
- Developed a Vulkan layer to measure input latency using synthetic input and present timing.
- Used the layer to analyze CPU-bound and GPU-bound scenarios, showing how anti-lag reduces latency.
- Tested FIFO buffering cases on fixed refresh rate monitors and streaming latency for remote gaming.
- Explored experimental anti-lag techniques for fixed refresh rate systems to optimize compositor deadlines.

vulkan

Kraid is a now a real compiler

Valve Sponsors Work Bringing Open-Source RADV Driver to Windows

Cracking Windows Open: Porting RADV to Win32

Vulkan Tutorial

Measuring Input Latency with VK_EXT_present_timing