Release

Version 2.21 of the Vulkan Hardware Capability Viewer is now available for all platforms (Windows, Linux, Android).

New extensions

This version has been updated to Vulkan Headers 1.2.154, adding support for reading new features and properties provided via VK_KHR_GET_PHYSICAL_DEVICE_PROPERTIES_2 for the following extensions:

• VK_KHR_portability_subset
• VK_EXT_4444_formats

Vulkan Portability

Most notable is the addition of VK_KHR_portability_subset to support the Vulkan® Portability™ initiative (github). This extension allows non-conformant Vulkan implementations to be built on top of other graphics api like Metal or DirectX, and allows identification of features missing for a fully-conformant Vulkan implementation. The aim is to reduce api fragmentation and open up other platforms for Vulkan. Examples of such portability implementations are MoltenVK for Mac or gfx-portability. A device report for the later can be found here.

Support for this extension will also be added to the device simulation JSON api of the Vulkan Hardware Database, so you’ll soon be able to get schema compliant JSON files for such implementations, that can be used with LunarG’s device simulation layer.