It seems like AMD has recognized the potential encapsulated in MESA's RADV Vulkan drivers on Linux as they push out a new update, adding in "initial" support for the driver for a key software resource.
AMD Pushes Out MESA RADV Driver "Experimental Support" For Their Resource, Suggesting a Joint Approach In Future
The open-source RADV Vulkan driver has been shaped to be positioned in a competitive spot, especially when it comes to hardware support, constant optimization, and bug fixes. The RADV Vulkan driver was recently met with a wave of optimizations, which resulted in a boost of ray tracing performance up to 200%. Such improvements have made the RADV driver a much superior option when compared to AMD's official "AMDVLK." However, it seems like AMD might have recognized the immense potential held in MESA's efforts, which is why the firm could come up with a "joint" approach moving ahead.
Phoronix reports that AMD has pushed out a new version of its Advanced Media Framework (AMF) SDK, which in simple terms is targeted at bringing in resources such as tools, libraries, and documentation to help developers leverage AMD's hardware capabilities, especially in the context of GPU programming and parallel computing.
The resource makes the support of multimedia applications for AMD's hardware much more seamless, ensuring widespread support across the APIs. However, the new version 1.4.33 has brought the AMF SDK support for the AMDGPU-PRO Vulkan driver, which is basically a package alongside the firm's mainstream drivers. Here is the changelog:
- Added native DX12 support for encoding and PreAnalysis
- Vulkan encoder became independent from Vulkan driver
- Switched to public Vulkan Khronos extensions for decoder
- AMF on Linux can now be used with AMD Pro Vulkan, and experimentally with RADV drivers
- Improvements to sample presenters
However, the interesting part is the addition of "experimental support" with MESA's RADV Vulkan drivers, which is a great move by AMD, considering the fact that RADV has seen widespread adoption from the Linux community and the developers are continuously working on it, in order to refine it into its best shape. The support for AMF SDK at RADV is encouraging, and it could hint that Team Red could change its approach with GPU drivers going into the future, but we will have to wait and see for now.
About the author: Muhammad Zuhair is a hardware and technology reporter for Wccftech, specializing in the semiconductor industry and the complex interplay between technology, manufacturing, and geopolitics. His coverage focuses on the corporate strategies and technological roadmaps of industry giants like TSMC, NVIDIA, Samsung, and Intel. Zuhair's expertise lies in deconstructing complex topics such as fabrication nodes (e.g., 2nm process), the economic impact of policies like the CHIPS Act, and the strategic development of AI infrastructure from NVIDIA, AMD and Intel.
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