--- title: Home url: 'https://vulkan.org/' markdown: 'https://vulkan.org/index.md' date: '2026-07-08' description: 'Vulkan is a next generation graphics and compute API that provides high-efficiency, cross-platform access to modern GPUs used in PCs, consoles, mobile phones and embedded platforms.' --- # Home Khronos welcomes community contributions ## Contributing There are many ways community members can contribute to Vulkan ranging from joining Khronos as a member, making suggestions for the Vulkan spec via Github or contributing to the many open source software and tools projects. Here are a few pointers to how to get started: ![Contributing](user/images/featured/jack-b-kfwYNWVwrFY-unsplash.webp) Khronos welcomes community contributions ## Contributing There are many ways community members can contribute to Vulkan ranging from joining Khronos as a member, making suggestions for the Vulkan spec via Github or contributing to the many open source software and tools projects. Here are a few pointers to how to get started: - - Promoter/contributor levels: Directly influence the Vulkan spec (with voting rights) - Associate/Academic/Not-for-Profit levels: Advise the Working Group on future evolution topics (no voting rights) [ Find Out More ](https://www.khronos.org/members/) - Khronos maintains several public GitHub repos for Vulkan - please follow the contributing and licensing guidelines listed on the repos: - The Vulkan specification ([Vulkan\_docs](https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Docs)) - Vulkan Guide ([vulkan\_guide](https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Guide)) - Khronos Vulkan Tutorial ([vulkan\_tutorial](https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Tutorial)) - Vulkan samples ([vulkan\_samples](https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Samples)) - docs.vulkan.org website ([vulkan\_site](https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Site/issues)) - Many tools, layers, profiles, etc. The public community can contribute via - Submitting issues - Suggesting improvements [ Find Out More ](https://github.com/KhronosGroup) - - Engines - Frameworks - Libraries - Language bindings [ Find Out More ](https://www.vulkan.org/tools) - - [ Vulkan Roadmap "proposal" (for background on Vulkan Roadmaps) ](https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Docs/blob/main/proposals/Roadmap.adoc)The Vulkan working group welcomes input from the developer community on challenges that you would like to see targeted in future Vulkan Roadmap milestones. If you have significant problems you’d like to see solved, major pain points that need addressing, improvements to streamline development, etc., your feedback will help guide the development of new solutions. - [ Submit a "Roadmap Feedback" issue on Vulkan-Docs ](https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Docs/issues/new?assignees=&labels=&projects=&template=roadmap-feedback.md&title=%5BRoadmap+Feedback%5D+)Open an issue (or comment on an existing Roadmap Feedback issue) on the [Vulkan-Docs](https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Docs) Github repo using the Roadmap Feedback issue template. See issue [\#2220](https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Docs/issues/2220) for an example. - [ Discord channel for roadmap ideas ](https://www.discord.gg/vulkan)Go to #vulkan-roadmap-discussions on the official [Vulkan Discord](https://www.discord.gg/vulkan) and post suggested roadmap improvements to seed discussions with other Vulkan developers and Work Group members ## Vulkan Platform Support Vulkan is a cross-platform industry standard enabling developers to target a wide range of devices with the same graphics API. - ![Windows 10 Logo](https://vulkan.org/images/7/c/1/9/3/7c193dc170a4eb95f1beaf469ff33de1e66b0064-windowsrgbblued.png) - ![Nintendo Switch Logo](https://vulkan.org/images/c/7/0/b/d/c70bd8b06d08fd563dc5a1b65c8cda0ee3672fb7-nintendoswitchlogosvg.png) - [ ![Khronos MoltenVK (MacOS/IOS support) Logo](https://vulkan.org/images/8/b/7/a/e/8b7aef8939dc7e8e8a3b38c058dc97c48f26969c-moltenvk-logo.png) ](https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK/) - ![Linux Logo](https://vulkan.org/images/e/f/5/1/4/ef514d95dbd522ce91afad014c05c902a0d7a9a3-linux.png) - ![Android Logo](https://vulkan.org/images/9/0/7/c/2/907c27f2a2cb8bd0dd191fdb203e60880cba8b11-android.png) - ![Huawei Harmoney OS Logo](https://vulkan.org/images/0/c/2/c/9/0c2c934b7268b5be6300d096e18713f017c04557-huawei-harmony-os-logo.png) Vulkan Developments ## Latest Extensions Vulkan is constantly evolving to bring new capabilities and improvements to the API. Here are some of the most recent developments ![Latest Extensions](user/images/featured/BG3-EA_RWA_TRAILER-07.webp) Baldur's Gate 3 - Larian Studios Vulkan Developments ## Latest Extensions Vulkan is constantly evolving to bring new capabilities and improvements to the API. Here are some of the most recent developments - - [ Vulkan 1.4 Specification ](https://docs.vulkan.org/spec/latest/index.html)The Vulkan 1.4 specification consolidates numerous previously optional extensions, features, and increased minimum hardware limits, many of which were defined in the Vulkan Roadmap 2022 and 2024 milestones and associated profiles - [ Read the press release ](https://www.khronos.org/news/press/khronos-streamlines-development-and-deployment-of-gpu-accelerated-applications-with-vulkan-1.4)Khronos Streamlines Development and Deployment of GPU-Accelerated Applications with Vulkan 1.4 - - [ Press Release ](https://www.khronos.org/blog/vulkan-introduces-roadmap-2026-and-new-descriptor-heap-extension)The Vulkan Working Group has released two important updates to the API and ecosystem: an entirely new Descriptor system and the Vulkan Roadmap 2026 Milestone. - [ Roadmap 2026 Specification ](https://docs.vulkan.org/spec/latest/appendices/roadmap.html#roadmap-2026)This milestone raises the baseline feature support of Vulkan implementations as with prior milestones. In addition, this milestone makes guarantees about swapchain and presentation support for implementations. - - [ Read the blog ](https://www.khronos.org/blog/vulkan-introduces-roadmap-2026-and-new-descriptor-heap-extension#descriptor_heaps)The new VK\_EXT\_descriptor\_heap extension represents a complete overhaul of the current Vulkan descriptor system, providing direct access to descriptor memory while preserving compatibility with legacy descriptor sets and other APIs. - [ Spec Proposal Document ](https://docs.vulkan.org/features/latest/features/proposals/VK_EXT_descriptor_heap.html)This document outlines a proposal to make the management of descriptor memory more explicit, allowing descriptors to be present in buffer memory, allowing the data and memory to be managed alongside other buffer objects. - - [ Press Release ](https://www.khronos.org/news/press/vulkan-sdk-is-vulkan-video-ready)Khronos has released finalized extensions, collectively called ‘Vulkan Video’, for seamlessly integrating hardware-accelerated video compression and decompression into the Vulkan API. This API incorporates industry feedback and exposes core decode Vulkan Video functionality to provide fully accelerated H.264 and H.265 decode. - [ Vulkan Video Blog - Decode ](https://www.khronos.org/blog/khronos-finalizes-vulkan-video-extensions-for-accelerated-h.264-and-h.265-decode)Vulkan Video adheres to the Vulkan philosophy of providing applications flexible, fine-grained control over scheduling, synchronization, and memory allocation. By leveraging the existing Vulkan API framework, the Vulkan Video extensions enable efficient, low-latency, low-overhead use of processing resources for accelerated video processing. - [ Vulkan Video Blog - Encode ](https://www.khronos.org/blog/khronos-finalizes-vulkan-video-extensions-for-accelerated-h.264-and-h.265-encode)With the release of Vulkan 1.3.274, Khronos has finalized the extensions to enable encoding of H.264 and H.265 video streams. - [ Vulkan Video Blog - AV1 Decode ](https://www.khronos.org/blog/khronos-releases-vulkan-video-av1-decode-extension-vulkan-sdk-now-supports-h.264-h.265-encode)Khronos Releases AV1 Decode in Vulkan Video with SDK Support for H.264/H.265 Encode - - [ Overview Blog ](https://www.khronos.org/blog/vulkan-sdk-offers-developers-a-smooth-transition-path-to-synchronization2)The newly released VK\_KHR\_synchronization2 extension brings extensive improvements to Vulkan queue submission, events, and pipeline barriers to significantly improve API usability for developers. - [ Technical Blog ](https://www.khronos.org/blog/understanding-vulkan-synchronization)The goal of this article is to help developers easily understand and not be intimidated or confused by one of the toughest aspects of Vulkan: Synchronization. - [ Synchronization 2 in the Vulkan Guide ](https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Guide/blob/master/chapters/extensions/VK_KHR_synchronization2.md)See this chapter in the Vulkan Guide for an overview of the latest Vulkan synchronization capabilities - [ Specification ](https://docs.vulkan.org/spec/latest/appendices/extensions.html#VK_KHR_synchronization2)See the details of VK\_KHR\_synchronization2 in the Vulkan specification - [ Synchronization 2 code sample ](https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Samples/tree/master/samples/extensions/synchronization_2)Demonstrates the use of the reworked synchronization api introduced with VK\_KHR\_synchronization2. This sample uses the new extension to streamline memory barriers used for compute and graphics work submissions. - - [ Read the Blog ](https://www.khronos.org/blog/vulkan-ray-tracing-final-specification-release)Khronos® has released the final versions of the set of Vulkan®, GLSL and SPIR-V extension specifications that seamlessly integrate ray tracing into the existing Vulkan framework. - [ Ray Tracing in the Vulkan Guide ](https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Guide/blob/master/chapters/extensions/ray_tracing.md)For an overview of Ray Tracing in Vulkan, check out this chapter in the Vulkan Guide - [ Specification ](https://docs.vulkan.org/spec/latest/chapters/raytracing.html)Start with the Ray Traversal and Ray Tracing sections of the Vulkan Spec for more details - [ Ray Tracing code sample ](https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Samples/tree/master/samples/extensions/raytracing_basic)Render a basic scene using the official cross-vendor ray tracing extension. Shows how to setup all data structures required for ray tracing - - [ Read the Blog ](https://www.khronos.org/blog/vulkan-timeline-semaphores)The new timeline semaphore synchronization API defines a primitive containing a superset of both the original VkSemaphore and VkFence primitives while simultaneously eliminating many of the most painful limitations of the previous APIs - [ Specification ](https://docs.vulkan.org/spec/latest/appendices/extensions.html#VK_KHR_timeline_semaphore)See detials for Timeline Semaphore in the Vulkan Specification - [ Timeline Semaphore code sample ](https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Samples/tree/master/samples/extensions/timeline_semaphore)Demonstrates various use cases which are enabled with timeline semaphores. The sample implements "Game of Life" using out-of-order signal and wait, multiple waits on same semaphore in different queues, waiting and signalling semaphore on host. - - [ Read the blog ](https://www.khronos.org/blog/khronos-vulkan-working-group-releases-shading-rate-extension-to-increase-rendering-performance-and-quality)The VK\_KHR\_fragment\_shading\_rate extension provides a new, flexible technique to control the fragment shading rate, enabling developers to perform shading at a lower resolution than the render targets. - [ Specification ](https://docs.vulkan.org/spec/latest/proposals/proposals/VK_KHR_fragment_shading_rate.html)See detials for VK\_KHR\_fragment\_shading\_rate in the Vulkan Specification - [ Fragment Shading Rate code sample ](https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Samples/tree/master/samples/extensions/fragment_shading_rate)Uses a special framebuffer attachment to control fragment shading rates for different framebuffer regions. This allows explicit control over the number of fragment shader invocations for each pixel covered by a fragment - - [ Read the blog ](https://community.arm.com/developer/tools-software/graphics/b/blog/posts/vulkan-descriptor-indexing)Android is enabling a host of useful new Vulkan extensions for mobile. These new extensions are set to improve the state of graphics APIs for modern applications, enabling new use cases and changing how developers can design graphics renderers going forward. - [ Specification ](https://docs.vulkan.org/spec/latest/appendices/extensions.html#VK_EXT_descriptor_indexing)See details for Descriptor Indexing in the Vulkan Specification - [ Descriptor Indexing code sample ](https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Samples/tree/master/samples/extensions/descriptor_indexing)Demonstrates how to use descriptor indexing to enable update-after-bind and non-dynamically uniform indexing of descriptors ## New to Graphics Programming? If you're just starting out in your Graphics Programming journey, we've listed a few recommended resources to help get you spun up on the basics. [Learn more ](https://vulkan.org/learn#new-to-graphics-programming) Marek Okon - Unsplash Community ## Join Our Community **There are several ways to follow the latest Vulkan developments, get questions answered and make suggestions for improvement.** You'll find thriving Vulkan community discussions on several forums and social media platforms below. It's a great way to get involved! [](https://fosstodon.org/@vulkan "Mastodon") [](https://www.youtube.com/c/vulkan "YouTube") [](https://reddit.com/r/vulkan "Reddit") [](https://community.khronos.org/ "Forums") [](https://discord.gg/vulkan "Vulkan Official Discord") [](https://github.com/khronosgroup "GitHub") [](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/vulkan "Stack Overflow") [](http://eepurl.com/guAH4n "Sign up to the Vulkan Newsletter") [](https://bsky.app/profile/vulkan.org "Bluesky ") Latest project ## Vulkan Portability Vulkan® Portability™ aims to counter platform fragmentation by encouraging layered implementations of Vulkan functionality over Metal, DX12 and other APIs. Vulkan Portability enables Vulkan applications to be reliably deployed across diverse platforms ![Vulkan Portability](user/images/logos/Vulkan-Portability_100px_Jan20.png) [Learn more ](https://vulkan.org/porting#vulkan-portability-initiative) Latest project ## Vulkan SC The release of the Vulkan SC 1.0 specification on March 1, 2022 marked an important milestone in delivering a new generation of safety-critical APIs. Based on the Vulkan 1.2 API, Vulkan SC meets the needs of safety-critical systems to leverage the performance of modern GPUs to satisfy their graphics and compute requirements. ![Vulkan SC](user/images/logos/Vulkan-SC_100px_Nov19.png) [Learn more ](https://www.khronos.org/vulkansc) Events ## Upcoming Events [ See more events ](https://vulkan.org/events) [Vulkanised 2027](https://vulkan.org/events/vulkanised-2027) February 8, 2027 - February 10, 2027 [ Read More ](https://vulkan.org/events/vulkanised-2027) News ## The Latest on Vulkan [ Find out more ](https://vulkan.org/news) [KosmicKrisp Achieves Vulkan 1.4 Conformance on Apple Silicon](https://www.lunarg.com/kosmickrisp-achieves-vulkan-1-4-conformance-on-apple-silicon/) KosmicKrisp, LunarG’s Mesa Vulkan driver for Apple silicon, has passed the Vulkan 1.4 Conformance Test Suite (CTS) and is now a Khronos-conformant Vulkan 1.4 implementation. The Vulkan 1.4-conformant version of KosmicKrisp is available for download via the Vulkan SDK.KosmicKrisp was already a Khronos-conformant Vulkan 1.3 product. Vulkan 1.4 conformance is the next step in advancing support for Vulkan on macOS. In addition to reaching 1.4 conformance, substantial support for non-core extensions and features has been added, including Tesselation, Robustness2, and Multi-draw. KosmicKrisp is implemented as a Mesa driver, shipped in the LunarG Vulkan SDK, and exercised in LunarG’s CI. Performance of KosmicKrisp has tripled since it achieved Vulkan 1.3 conformance, and optimization work continues to be a high priority. October 1st at 6:22pm [ Read More ](https://www.lunarg.com/kosmickrisp-achieves-vulkan-1-4-conformance-on-apple-silicon/) [The Future of Graphics: Khronos Group Interview (video)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLIHnG_cYkk) RedGamingTech's Paul sits down for this interview with Khronos Group President, Neil Trevett. They discuss a range of topics including Vulkan and the addition of Descriptor Heaps (which will be the new standard rather than the binding model), what the industry have decided around Work Graphs and work lists (especially because DX12 is pushing away from Work Graphs), Neural Rendering. Neural texture compression, RTX Mega Geometry, neural materials and how the rendering pipeline may change in the long term, including how APIs will evolve for both graphics and other technologies as hardware becomes more powerful and AI models handle more of the workloads in games.Other subjects include SLANG, Neural rendering and AI, glTF and OpenXR. While Virtual Reality hasn't been embraced so quickly by gamers, VR and Augmented Reality has its place in many other fields, and so technology such as OpenXR is going to be increasingly important. September 9th at 10:21pm [ Read More ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLIHnG_cYkk) [NVIDIA 615.71.09 Linux Driver Features Vulkan Improvements](https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/details/278450/) NVIDIA has added support for VK_NV_low_latency revision 2, to enable out-of-the-box Proton support for NVIDIA Reflex in Vulkan-native games. In addition: Fixed a bug which prevented VK_NV_low_latency2 from reducing latency on swapchains created from VK_KHR_wayland_surface and VK_KHR_display surfaces. Fixed multiple startup and alt-tab hangs that occurred with NVIDIA Smooth Motion enabled. Fixed a bug that caused a file descriptor leak when the Vulkan loader unloads libGLX_nvidia.so.0 after a call to vkDestroyInstance. Added support for the VK_EXT_cluster_acceleration_structure Vulkan extension. September 9th at 9:40pm [ Read More ](https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/details/278450/) [RuneScape Ships Vulkan Open Beta](https://secure.runescape.com/m=news/the-week-ahead-vulkan-beta-launch-npc-auto-dormancy--more) Jagex's RuneScape launched an open beta of its Vulkan renderer on Windows on September 7, replacing OpenGL as the engine transitions for lower CPU overhead, better multi-threading, and improved streaming/loading performance. Android is next, with an eventual Vulkan-to-Metal translation layer for Apple platforms; OpenGL stays as a fallback for incompatible devices. September 9th at 3:24pm [ Read More ](https://secure.runescape.com/m=news/the-week-ahead-vulkan-beta-launch-npc-auto-dormancy--more) Join the conversation: [](https://fosstodon.org/@vulkan "Mastodon") [](https://www.youtube.com/c/vulkan "YouTube") [](https://reddit.com/r/vulkan "Reddit") [](https://community.khronos.org/ "Forums") [](https://discord.gg/vulkan "Vulkan Official Discord") [](https://github.com/khronosgroup "GitHub") [](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/vulkan "Stack Overflow") [](http://eepurl.com/guAH4n "Sign up to the Vulkan Newsletter") [](https://bsky.app/profile/vulkan.org "Bluesky ") --- ## Navigation - Next: [Learn](https://vulkan.org/learn.md)