This year the Khronos Vulkanised conference returned as a face-to-face event. The event gives hardware manufacturers, device manufacturers, and software developers a chance to talk about all things Vulkan. With 33 talks and panel sessions, as well as plenty of time for discussions and demos, there is something for all Vulkan API practitioners.
These Khronos events are a great way for us to teach developers about efficient mobile content creation, and highlight new features available in the latest devices. It is also helpful to meet developers to understand future use cases, discuss trends in API usage, and identify points of friction that we can improve. This feedback helps us to drive the future roadmap for the GPU itself, and our developer tools and developer education materials.
All the talk recordings and slides can be found on the Khronos event page. However, we wanted to briefly spotlight the three Arm talks at the event.
Presenter: Peter Harris, Arm
In this talk, I introduce smartphones and what makes them different to a traditional platform, such as a games console, for performance and optimization. I then present why the constraints of a smartphone mean that most mobile GPUs use tile-based rendering approaches. Finally, I look at how this design choice influences the Vulkan API usage best practices for mobile content.
Watch the video below to learn about how to make best use of render passes and swapchains in your application. Discover how to apply framebuffer compression, including the new Arm Fixed-Rate Compression (AFRC). You will also learn how to be lean with geometry, and what not to do with timer queries …
Presenter: Jose-Emilio Munoz-Lopez, Arm
In this talk, my colleague Jose-Emilio introduces the new ray tracing features that are available in the Arm Immortalis-G715 GPU. He then explains how we used the ray query extensions to augment a traditional fragment pipeline with ray traced shadows, mirror reflections, and multi-layer refractions.
Watch the video to learn about how ray tracing differs from the traditional rasterization approaches, and how ray tracing is exposed by the Vulkan API. Also learn how we applied multiple ray tracing techniques to a game-like scene, achieving 60 FPS on a Mediatek Dimensity 9200 processor, powered by Immortalis-G715.
Presenter: Albin Bernhardsson, Arm
In this talk, my colleague Albin introduces the new Vulkan variable rate shading (VRS) extension, VK_KHR_fragment_shading_rate, that is available in Immortalis-G715. He explains how we used it to optimize the performance of a high-end lighting pipeline, while minimizing the visual quality impact.
Watch the video to learn about what VRS is, and how the Vulkan API exposes the functionality to applications. Also learn how we generated screen-space shading rate images to reduce the fragment shading cost in parts of the screen where it has the least visual impact. And discover how VRS improved the performance of our high-end lighting demo by up to 15 percent, with minimal impact on the perceptual image quality.
It was great to be back at the Vulkanised event in person. It is always useful to have a chance to talk with developers to hear their desires for the future and pain points in the present. I hope to see you all again next year.
If you have any questions, or requests for future presentation topics, please let us know in the comments.