Today Basemark releases version 1.1 of its multi-platform graphics hardware evaluation tool Basemark GPU. Basemark GPU has been made available for free to download and use for personal users. Additionally, Basemark has provided professional versions for Benchmark Development Program members, corporate and commercial users.

Basemark GPU 1.1 Benchmark offers unparalleled, objective comparisons between Vulkan, OpenGL, OpenGL ES and now DirectX 12 for graphics performance analysis across both mobile and desktop platforms. Our desktop Linux version of Basemark GPU 1.1 will be available in the next few days utilizing the easily installable universal Flatpak delivery format.

Basemark GPU is available for download now.

AMD today made available the latest version of their Radeon software drivers, Adrenalin Edition 18.11.2, for supported graphics solutions. This brings with it support for the hotly anticipated Battlefield V game title, as well as some fixes to issues that users have been awaiting. Driver software notifications no longer list erroneously the current installed driver version and, more importantly, the annoying bug affecting some RX Vega users of elevated memory clocks even during system idle states has been resolved.

The driver also brings with it support for a Vulkan extension, VK_AMD_memory_overallocation_behavior, that "allows controlling whether explicit overallocation beyond the device memory heap sizes is allowed or not" as AMD puts it themselves. Things are not all rosy, however, with known issues including potential crashing of Assassin's Creed: Odyssey at some locations on Windows 7 systems and possible mouse lag with multi-display setups with at least one display enabled but powered off. This is disappointing considering an older driver update from September had seemingly fixed it too. The drivers are up for download at the link below, hosted directly on TechPowerUp for your convenience, and the change log is available past the break for those interested.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 18.11.2

NVIDIA today introduced the Quadro RTX 4000 graphics card - the company's first midrange professional GPU powered by the NVIDIA Turing architecture and the NVIDIA RTX platform. Unveiled at the annual Autodesk University Conference in Las Vegas, the Quadro RTX 4000 puts real-time ray tracing within reach of a wider range of developers, designers and artists worldwide.

Professionals from the manufacturing, architecture, engineering and media creation industries witnessed a seismic shift in computer graphics with the launch of Turing in August. The field's greatest leap since the invention of the CUDA GPU in 2006, Turing features new RT Cores to accelerate ray tracing and next-gen Tensor Cores for AI inferencing which, together for the first time, make real-time ray tracing possible.

AMD recently announced the Radeon Instinct MI60, a GPU-based data-center compute processor with hardware virtualization features. It takes the crown for "the world's first 7 nm GPU." The company also put out specifications of the "Vega 20" GPU it's based on: 4,096 stream processors, 4096-bit HBM2 memory interface, 1800 MHz engine clock-speed, 1 TB/s memory bandwidth, 7.4 TFLOP/s peak double-precision (FP64) performance, and the works. Here's the kicker: the company isn't launching this accelerator with Windows support. At launch, AMD is only releasing x86-64 Linux drivers, with API support for OpenGL 4.6, Vulkan 1.0, and OpenCL 2.0, along with AMD's ROCm open ecosystem. The lack of display connector already disqualifies this card for most workstation applications, but with the lack of Windows support, it is also the most expensive graphics card that "can't run Crysis." AMD could release Radeon Pro branded graphics cards based on "Vega 20," which will ship with Windows and MacOS drivers.

AMD has released today the Radeon Software Adrenalin 18.10.2 beta drivers. These drivers focus on a few key fixes with the first one solving the issue of Vulkan API titles that experience crashing when launching the game. Next is a specific fix for Assassin's Creed Odyssey which keeps the game from randomly exiting when it is restarted after applying Adaptive Anti-Aliasing on multi-GPU systems.

That said, a few issues have been specifically noted. Strange Brigade can still experience application hang when using the DirectX 12 API. Radeon Overlay does not play nice with the latest Windows 10 October 2018 Update. It can cause intermittent instability or game crashes for the time being. Finally, RX Vega series graphics cards may experience elevated memory clocks when the system is idle. Other than that nothing else is mentioned by AMD in regards to possible driver performance improvements etc. Instead, this latest beta focuses on a few key fixes and nothing more. It should also be noted that it is available in 64-bit only, as AMD confirmed earlier today they will not be supporting 32-bit operating systems going forward.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 18.10.2 BetaThe change-log follows.

GitHub developer jgbit has started an open-source project called VUDA, which takes inspiration from NVIDIA's CUDA API to bring an easily accessible GPU compute interface to the open-source world. VUDA is implemented as wrapper on top of the highly popular next-gen graphics API Vulkan, which provides low-level access to hardware. VUDA comes as header-only C++ library, which means it's compatible with all platforms that have a C++ compiler and that support Vulkan.

While the project is still young, its potential is enormous, especially due to the open source nature (using the MIT license). The page on GitHub comes with a (very basic) sample, that could be a good start for using the library.

Intel has submitted the first patches with Vulkan support to their open-source OpenCV library, which is designed to accelerate Computer Vision. The library is widely used for real-time applications as it comes with 1st-class optimizations for Intel processors and multi-core x86 in general. With Vulkan support, existing users can immediately move their neural network workloads to the GPU compute space without having to rewrite their code base.

At this point in time, the Vulkan backend supports Convolution, Concat, ReLU, LRN, PriorBox, Softmax, MaxPooling, AvePooling, and Permute. According to the source code changes, this is just "a beginning work for Vulkan in OpenCV DNN, more layer types will be supported and performance tuning is on the way."

It seems that now, with their own GPU development underway, Intel has found new love for the GPU-accelerated compute space. The choice of Vulkan is also interesting as the API is available on a wide range of platforms, which could mean that Intel is trying to turn Vulkan into a CUDA killer. Of course there's still a lot of work needed to achieve that goal, since NVIDIA has had almost a decade of head start.

Manli Technology Group Limited, the major Graphics Cards and other components manufacturer, today announced the brand new RTX 20 series family graphics solution - Manli GeForce RTX 2080 Ti & RTX 2080 Gallardo with RGB Lights. Manli GeForce RTX 2080 Ti & RTX 2080 Gallardo delivers extremely cool, fast and smooth gaming experience. Powered by the latest NVIDIA Turing GPU architecture and revolutionary RTX platform. It also couples with real-time ray tracing, artificial intelligence and programmable shading.

AMD today released version 18.8.2 Beta of their Radeon Adrenalin drivers. This driver version brings with it support for Strange Brigade, so if you're planning on partaking in some gaming over that title's waters, you should have this driver suite. Apart from that, there are just some known issues with this driver release: minor corruption on Strange Brigades' Vulkan renderer on Windows 7 systems; application hangs on V-Sync and FreeSync (at the same time) enabled systems (also on Windows 7); and Radeon Overlay's functioning in multiple-GPU configurations under the Vulkan renderer. Grab these drivers from the link below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 18.8.2 Beta

Gaijin Studios also went on stage with their Enlisted game to showcase their particular implementation of NVIDIA's RTX - the first we've seen that was based not on Direct X 12, but on Vulkan. The highlights pointed out stuck with RTX's strengths, naturally, but particularly, with the ease with which the global illumination system was implemented. Essentially, the fact that Enlisted features massive, dynamic maps with up to 64 square kilometers, destructible environments and indoors and outdoors lighting conditions means that pre-baked illumination solutions just wouldn't cut it in any way - there were just too many variables to consider. RTX implemented via Vulkan was, for the studio, and as they put it, the tool they never knew they couldn't live without.

AMD today released version 18.8.1 beta of its Radeon Software Adrenalin drivers that keep your graphics card's performance equal to that of a well/oiled machine (figuratively, of course). The new software version brings driver-level support and improvements for the upcoming (and highly awaited) Monster Hunter: World. for that game, this driver release promises up to 5% and 6% increased performance on AMD's RX Vega graphics card and RX 580, respectively, compared to AMD's 18.6.1 driver release at 1080p.

This driver also adds support for World of Warcraft : Battle for Azeroth, We Happy Few, and Madden NFL 19. Another interesting additions are the extended functions for the Vulkan API, supporting more commands than previous driver versions. As always, you can download these drivers right here on TPU - just follow the link below. Feel free to jump towards after the break for some more details on this driver release.DOWNLOAD:AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 18.8.1 Beta

Chinese PC maker Zhongshan Subor believes that there is space for a class of devices between game consoles and gaming desktops, targeted at Chinese gamers that game a lot online, and won't mind a little productivity on the side. The same class of people are repulsed by the idea of gaming desktops from traditional OEMs, which tend to be overpriced; and don't want to burn their hands building their own PC. For them, there's a new console-desktop; which runs common PC OS, plays PC versions of games, and runs PC apps, while exhibiting some characteristics of a console (perhaps a dashboard, and a highly customized user-interface stack), called simply SUBOR.

A part of what makes SUBOR affordable compared to OEM gaming desktops is because every component is purpose-built, including the SoC at the heart of it. This semi-custom SoC is codenamed "Fenghuang." The chip is a cut above the one that powers the PS4 Pro or Xbox One X. It combines a 4-core/8-thread CPU based on AMD's latest "Zen" architecture, compared to the low-power "Jaguar" derivatives that power the fastest consoles. The CPU runs at up to 3.00 GHz of clocks, and has 4 MB of L3 cache. The GPU is equally impressive: based on "Vega," it packs 24 NGCUs, translating to 1,536 stream processors, and the latest feature-set, including DirectX 12 and Vulkan. The GPU engine ticks at up to 1.30 GHz. 8 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 256-bit wide interface, is hardwired to the SoC (no memory expansion). The SUBOR will be unveiled at China Joy 2018.

Intel, via a Game Dev Developer Zone blog post, took it into its hands to urge game developers towards usage of the industry-prevalent Vulkan API. Some unapologetic puns are thrown in, such as "(...) You might say that Vulkan lets apps live long and prosper", but these are only meant to entertain. And it's well known that Intel has supported the Khronos Group and Vulkan's inception from the beginning, alongside Google. The reasons for this blog post to make it into a front page, however, are twofold.

Vulkan APIs are positioned to become one of the next dominant graphics rendering platforms.

Basemark launched today Basemark GPU, a new graphics performance evaluation tool for systems with Vulkan 1.0, OpenGL 4.5 or OpenGL ES 3.1 graphics APIs. This tool enables the industry to objectively and reliably quantify and compare graphics performance of next generation mobile, automotive and desktop processors.

"We have poured all of our soul and expertise in making this product. The work started two and half years ago and this massive project has culminated in today's launch of a true state-of-the-art product," said Arto Ruotsalainen, CEO of Basemark. "We believe Basemark GPU will become an essential tool for anyone tasked to evaluate graphics performance in systems ranging from smart phones, smart TVs and cars to PCs."

NVIDIA made big moves to bring a semblance of real-time ray-tracing to the masses, with the new RTX technology, as part of its efforts to replace rasterized rendering, which has dominated 3D graphics for the past three decades. Microsoft has come out with its own extension to DirectX 12, with the new DXR API. NVIDIA is now reportedly working with the Khronos Group to bring RTX to Vulkan.

A new Vulkan extension titled "VK_NV_raytracing" surfaced in tech-documents accessed by Phoronix, which is the company's contribution to a multi-vendor standard for ray-tracing, being developed by the Khronos Group. This extension could expose several NVIDIA RTX features and presets to Vulkan. It also has similar code-structures to DXR, to minimize duplication of effort, or skill-building. NVIDIA will detail its adaptation of RTX to Vulkan further at GTC.

NVIDIA today releases GeForce 397.31 WHQL drivers. The drivers see NVIDIA discontinue regular support for 32-bit versions of Windows. It also sheds support for GPUs based on NVIDIA "Fermi" GPU architecture (GeForce 400 series and 500 series). The drivers also add first official support for NVIDIA RTX real-time ray-tracing technology. To use it, you'll need a GPU based on NVIDIA's next-generation "Volta" architecture (such as the $3,000 TITAN V), the latest major version of Windows 10, and Microsoft DXR developer package. The drivers also add support for Vulkan 1.1 API. Besides the above three, GeForce 397.31 WHQL is game-ready for "BattleTech" and "FrostPunk." Grab it from the link below.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 397.31 WHQL

AMD announced at GDC widened support for Radeon Rays with Unity Lightmapper. Its open-source, high efficiency, high performance GPU-accelerated ray tracing software helps game developers to achieve higher visual quality and stunningly photorealistic 3D images in real-time. Radeon ProRender now supports real-time GPU acceleration of ray tracing techniques mixed with traditional rasterization-based rendering, to combine the value of ray tracing with the interactivity of rasterization.

For gaming, ray tracing is in its early stages. For professional applications, however, real-time ray tracing is a well-established rendering technique. Today, AMD is announcing ProRender support for real-time GPU acceleration of ray tracing techniques mixed with traditional rasterization based rendering. Now built on Vulkan, ProRender is continuing to enable developers to deliver interactive photorealistic graphics. We are actively engaging with professional developers to make real-time visualization a reality.

AMD today released the latest version Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition. Version 18.3.3 beta is the third release for this month, and features a major API update, in addition to game optimization. The drivers introduce support for the Vulkan 1.1 API. In addition, the drivers provide optimization for "Sea of Thieves," and "A Way Out." An intermittent stuttering issue was fixed with "Forza Motorsport 7." A system hang seen on "Star Wars Battlefront 2," on multi-GPU systems, was fixed. Also fixed are flickering and objects disappearing from the scene, with "Final Fantasy XV."DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 18.3.3 Beta

The change-log follows.

The Khronos Group, an open consortium of leading hardware and software companies creating advanced acceleration standards, announces the release of the Vulkan 1.1 and SPIR-V 1.3 specifications. Version 1.1 expands Vulkan's core functionality with developer-requested features, such as subgroup operations, while integrating a wide range of proven extensions from Vulkan 1.0. Khronos will also release full Vulkan 1.1 conformance tests into open source and AMD, Arm, Imagination, Intel Corporation, NVIDIA and Qualcomm have implemented conformant Vulkan 1.1 drivers. Find more information on the Vulkan 1.1 specification and associated tests and tools at Khronos's Vulkan Resource Page.

"With enhanced developer tools, rigorous conformance testing and the public Vulkan Ecosystem Forum, Khronos is delivering on its goal to develop a complete and vibrant Vulkan ecosystem," said Tom Olson, distinguished engineer at Arm, and Vulkan Working Group chair. "Vulkan 1.1 is a response to prioritized industry requests and shows our commitment to delivering a functional roadmap driven by developer needs."

A Vulkan-compatible driver for macOS and iOS, MoltenVK, is now available free of charge and open-source. Having invested into its development for more than a year, Khronos Group has sponsored The Brenwill Workshop to donate MoltenVK for inclusion in the Vulkan graphics ecosystem.

We've also continued our efforts with LunarG who is today releasing a corresponding update to deliver macOS support to the Vulkan SDK. Also as a result of that work, Dota 2 will soon be updated to target Vulkan on macOS. It's been almost four years since we started contributing to Vulkan's goal of becoming a cross platform solution. With support for Windows, Linux, and Android crossed off the list, this latest set of updates checks off one of the largest remaining targets, giving developers an easy yet robust way to also target their Vulkan-based engines and titles to run on macOS and iOS. By making the code to MoltenVK freely available and open-source, the goal is to enable developers to bring their games to macOS and iOS with minimal development cost.

AMD today released its latest version of Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition. Version 18.2.1 Beta adds optimization for "Final Fantasy 12: The Zodiac Age." It also corrects a bug with AMD FreeSync which caused it to switch between minimum and maximum refresh-rate range, causing a stutter. FreeSync compatibility with Samsung CF791 displays, was also improved. It also corrects a game launch issue with "Sid Meier's Civilization V" on hybrid graphics systems. Radeon Chill compatibility is improved with games that use the Vulkan API (such as "Doom" and "Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus." Texture and artifact glitches were corrected in games such as "NFS: Payback" and "Hyperdimension Neptunia."DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 18.2.1

AMD released the AMDVLK drivers for Linux. These are the first open-source AMD Radeon graphics drivers featuring 100% support for Vulkan 1.0 graphics API. The drivers include Vulkan 1.0 compliance with support for 30 Vulkan extensions, Radeon GPU Profiler support, in-built debug and profiling tools, mid-command buffer preemption, and SR-IOV virtualization support. AMDVLK implements AMD's Platform Abstraction Library (PAL), an abstraction layer that translates much of AMD's common driver code and features across platforms. The drivers support all AMD Radeon GPUs based on the Graphics CoreNext architecture, going all the way back to the Radeon HD 7000-series. The drivers are released through AMD's GPUOpen GitHub repository.

The latest update for the Steam software brought with it an important new addition for the quality of life of gamers under the Linux or Windows suns everywhere: persistent shader caches for games. In the latest change-log, users are treated to the following message: "New feature: Shader Pre-Caching. Whenever possible, depending on hardware and driver support, Steam can download pre-compiled shaders for your specific video card. This reduces load times and in-game stuttering during the first few launches of OpenGL- and Vulkan-based games on supported hardware. This feature may use a small amount of additional bandwidth as Steam uploads and analyzes a shader usage report after each run of the game. The feature can be disabled via a new entry in the Settings dialog.

Under Steam Settings, you'll find a new Shader Pre-Caching item. The description reads as follows: "Shader Pre-Caching allows Steam to download pre-compiled GPU shaders matching your system configuration. This allows Vulkan and OpenGL games to load faster and improve framerate stability during gameplay. If enabled, Steam will collect shaders from your system when needed. Enabling this feature may slightly increase disk and bandwidth usage."

NVIDIA today released the GeForce 387.92 Game Ready Graphics Drivers, which presents a more comprehensive package than most Game Ready drivers. This time, the changes aren't mostly limited to new, upcoming games support, though that's still part of the package. On that front, you can count on these drivers being optimized for the upcoming Middle-earth: Shadow of War and The Evil Within 2, as well as Forza Motorsport 7, on which NVIDIA expects anywhere between 15% and 25% performance improvement (which should help improve NVIDIA's situation). On the VR space, this driver package brings the optimal experience for 4A Games' Artika.1 (if you recognize the studios' name, it's probably because they're the ones behind the Metro game series.

Also interesting, however, are the feature updates that come with this driver package. Fast Sync is now supported for SLI configurations, though Maxwell architecture users should steer clear of 4K resolution, which isn't supported for this feature. There's also NVIDIA GameStream support for HDR under Windows 10. On the renderer side, we see added support for OpenGL 4.6, as well as for DirectX Intermediate Language (DXIL). This includes full support for DirectX 12 Shader Model 6.0 ( for features such as Wavemath), and the DirectX Shader Compiler, though it's only supported on NVIDIA Kepler and later GPUs. There are also some improvements to full-screen Vulkan applications, though this particular change may cause more errors while leaving and entering full-screen mode (Alt-Tab). Grab the drivers from the link below right here on TPU, and find the change-log after the break.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 387.92 Game Ready Drivers

AMD today announced the AMD Embedded Radeon E9170 Series graphics processing unit (GPU). The new processor is the first "Polaris" architecture-based AMD Embedded discrete GPU available in multi-chip module (MCM) format with integrated memory for smaller, power-efficient custom designs, as well as PCI Express and MXM formats for standard form factor systems. The E9170 Series GPU is ideal for devices that require premium graphics and expanded display capabilities while meeting exacting power and thermal efficiency demands. AMD is extending its core graphics technology, delivering crystal clear resolution and a stunning and seamless 4K experience across multiple displays to a growing number of markets, including digital casino games, thin clients, medical displays, retail and digital signage, and industrial systems.

The AMD Embedded Radeon E9173 GPU, based on the "Polaris" architecture, leverages an optimized 14nm FinFET manufacturing process to provide up to 3X the performance-per-watt over previous generations of AMD Embedded GPUsi. By offering sub-40W TDP in a small package, AMD enables a broader range of products, adding a new level of scalability to the AMD Radeon Power-Efficient Embedded GPU portfolio. With support for up to five simultaneous 4K displaysii, the E9170 Series GPU virtually eliminates the need for additional processors and duplicate hardware to create an immersive multimedia environment. Additionally, the option to select from MCM, MXM and PCI Express modules increases design flexibility while minimizing complexity.