14 DAY TRIAL // After informing us last week about the availability of the Release Candidate (RC) version of the first point release of Mesa 13.0.0, as well as about Mesa 13.0.1's upcoming launch on November 13, 2016, Collabora's Emil Velikov released the final version today.
As noted in our previous report, Mesa 13.0.1 3D Graphics Library is here with a large number of improvements for both Intel and Radeon Vulkan drivers, thus enhancing our gaming experience once again. For the Intel ANV Vulkan driver, it looks like it adds up to 30 percent performance increase.
On the other hand, the latest RADV improvements allow you to install and use the Radeon Vulkan driver outside the /usr/lib directory on a Linux-based operating system, which is possible because of the implementation of distinctly named JSON files that contain the full path of the Vulkan driver.
"Up-to 30% performance increase using the Intel ANV Vulkan driver. The Radeon RADV Vulkan driver now ships with distinctly named json files, which include the full Vulkan driver path. Making it possible for people to install and use the drivers outside their /usr/lib directory," wrote Emil Velikov, Software Release Engineer at Collabora.
More RADV improvements, GLX GLVND driver fixes
But that's not all that was implemented in today's Mesa 13.0.1 3D Graphics Library release, as we can notice even more Radeon Vulkan driver improvements, such as the ability to correctly advertise support for the Xlib platform extension, which finally lets users use RADV alongside the open-source Dolphin GameCube and Wii emulator.
The handling of XCB and Xlib connections was improved as well, for both Intel and Radeon Vulkan drivers, allowing them to advertise the correct versions of their supported extensions. On top of that, Mesa 13.0.1 promises lots of enhancements to the GLX GLVND driver.
Last but not least, it re-implements the interoperability between Mesa's libEGL and libGL libraries and third-party OpenCL implementations. Below, we've attached the full changelog for the tech-savvy reader curious to know what exactly was fixed or added in Mesa 13.0.1, whose source archive is available for download right now from our website.