GPU hardware databases hit 50,000 reports

50,000 reports (and counting) When I started the OpenGL online hardware database in 2011 along with a client application written in Delphi (which is pretty niche nowadays), it was meant as a replacement for a defunct database of OpenGL devices made by someone else. 13 years later my community driven GPU databases now also support OpenGL ES, OpenCL and Vulkan. Judging by the numbers and the feedback I get, the databases are widely used by developers that work the open APIs from Khronos. [Read More]

Improving filtering for the Vulkan hardware database

Improving filtering Eight years after launching the Vulkan database to the public, it’s approaching 30,000 uploaded reports from more than 3,300 different devices across Windows, Linux, Android, MacOS and iOS. With that much data available, good filtering capabilities are crucial. One part where the filtering capabilities of the database were severely lacking have been device coverage based listings. Device coverage is a percentage value that states how many distinct devices (not reports) support a given feature. [Read More]
vulkan 

Vulkan Hardware Capability Viewer 3.33 released

New client application Version 3.33 of the Vulkan Hardware Capability Viewer is now available for all platforms (Windows, Linux, Android, Mac OSX). An update for the Google Play Android version is also pending and should be live soon. New extensions As the last release has been a while ago, this version did a rather large jump to Vulkan Headers 1.3.276 and adds support for a lot of new extension features and properties provided via VK_KHR_GET_PHYSICAL_DEVICE_PROPERTIES_2: [Read More]

New Vulkan Documentation Site

Vulkan Documentation has a new home With something as complex as the Vulkan API, good documentation is crucial for developer adoption. And while Vulkan had pretty good documentation from the get-go, with esp. the spec getting lots of praise, there was a lot of room for improvement. The spec e.g. has become so large that lower-end devices have problems loading it up in the browser, other interesting documentation is scattered around different places and related documentation (e. [Read More]
vulkan 

Vulkan Hardware Capability Viewer 3.32 released

New client application Version 3.32 of the Vulkan Hardware Capability Viewer is now available for all platforms (Windows, Linux, Android, Mac OSX). An update for the Google Plays Android version is also pending and should be live soon. New extensions This version has been updated to Vulkan Headers 1.3.264 adding support for reading new features and properties provided via VK_KHR_GET_PHYSICAL_DEVICE_PROPERTIES_2 for the following extensions: VK_KHR_cooperative_matrix VK_EXT_frame_boundary VK_EXT_depth_bias_control VK_EXT_dynamic_rendering_unused_attachments VK_NV_descriptor_pool_overallocation VK_MSFT_layered_driver VK_QCOM_image_processing2 VK_QCOM_filter_cubic_weights VK_QCOM_ycbcr_degamma VK_QCOM_filter_cubic_clamp VK_QNX_external_memory_screen_buffer Other changes Supported image layouts for the VK_EXT_host_image_copy are now properly displayed using their Vulkan enums. [Read More]

Automatic dark theme toggle for all GPU databases

Dark mode theme A few months ago I added a dark/light theme toggle to the launchpad and all databases (Vulkan, OpenGL, OpenGL ES and OpenCL). After getting mostly positive feedback I decided to replace this manual toggle with an automatic toggle that selects the dark or light theme based on your operating system. So if you’re running your Windows with a dark theme, the databases will now automatically switch to a dark mode too. [Read More]

Vulkan Hardware Capability Viewer 3.29 released

New client application Version 3.29 of the Vulkan Hardware Capability Viewer is now available for all platforms (Windows, Linux, Android, Mac OSX). An update for the slightly outdated Google Playstore is also pending and should be live soon. New extensions This version has been updated to Vulkan Headers 1.3.243 adding support for reading new features and properties provided via VK_KHR_GET_PHYSICAL_DEVICE_PROPERTIES_2 for the following extensions: VK_ARM_shader_core_properties VK_EXT_image_sliced_view_of_3d VK_EXT_pipeline_library_group_handles VK_QCOM_multiview_per_view_render_areas Other changes The new version also includes a usability improvement for filtering data. [Read More]

New surface data listings for the Vulkan database

New global surface data listings Being able to filter for all data available from submitted reports is an important aspect of the database, so I’m constantly adding new global listings that also let you check coverage numbers. The surface part of the database was missing two important listings: One for the surface transform modes and one for the surface composite alpha modes. They have been added to the database and quickly let you find out global and per-platform coverage numbers: [Read More]

Compute chapter for Vulkan-Tutorial

Vulkan Tutorial For a lot of developers wanting to learn Vulkan, the tutorial at www.vulkan-tutorial.com is the first learning resource they’ll encounter. It teaches most of the basics required to get started with Vulkan, but up until now only for the graphics part. But Vulkan does more than graphics, with compute shader support being mandatory and as such available on all devices and platforms that support Vulkan. New compute chapter And being well aware on how important the tutorial is as a learning resource, we have a small group of people inside Khronos that takes care of keeping the tutorial up-to-date and in line with api changes. [Read More]
vulkan 

Reworked compare functionality for all GPU databases

Comparing devices - Current state A core feature of all my GPU databases (Vulkan, OpenCL, OpenGL and OpenGL ES) is the possibility to compare reports. This lets you quickly see how the implementations differ, e.g. regarding extension support or api limits. For this you check the reports (or devices) to compare from the currently visible list: And after pressing “compare” you’ll get a side-by-side comparison of the selected reports: But the current implementation has an annoying limitation that has been bothering users (and me) for years now: You can only ever select reports (to compare) from the currently visible list of reports. [Read More]