Vulkan 1.3.226 has been released, which adds the VK_EXT_mesh_shader extension to provide mesh shader functionality. The VK_EXT_mesh_shader extension is a new mechanism for applications to generate collections of geometric primitives through programmable mesh shading, an alternative to the existing programmable primitive shading pipeline.

This extension is a cross-vendor feature developed by NVIDIA, Valve, Intel, ARM, and AMD to succeed earlier mesh shader extensions designed by NVIDIA. NVIDIA has worked hard to support mesh shaders since the Turing architecture, spearheading initial OpenGL and Vulkan work, as well as mesh shading in DirectX 12 Ultimate. Currently, NVIDIA has released a new Vulkan beta driver that adds full VK_EXT_mesh_shader support for Vulkan 1.3.226.

Additionally, the Vulkan 1.3.226 update introduces the VK_EXT_depth_clamp_01 extension, which introduces depth clamp functionality. Learn more details about the Vulkan v1.3.226 release in the update announcement.

More details on the Vulkan Mesh Shader extension can be found on the Khronos blog.