NVIDIA Vulkan Beta Update Brings Hang Fixes, Device Diagnostic Checkpoints

NVIDIA has just published their latest Vulkan beta driver release for Windows and Linux.

The newest NVIDIA Vulkan beta for Linux out today is version 396.51.02. Most notable with this driver update is that it adds support for the VK_NV_device_diagnostic_checkpoints extension. This extension was recently made public by Vulkan 1.1.82 and is for inserting device diagnostic checkpoints.

These diagnostic checkpoints are basically custom markers in the command stream that can be associated with arbitrary data. Game/engine/application developers can make use of these custom checkpoints for narrowing down problematic Vulkan commands based upon the most recently passed checkpoint.

Aside from the NV_device_diagnostic_checkpoints, the NVIDIA Linux 396.51.02 driver also has a few hang fixes and other minor driver and SPIR-V compiler fixes too.

Those wanting to download this very latest NVIDIA Linux Vulkan beta can find it at developer.nvidia.com.