AMD adds support for Vulkan 1.0 in 16.3 driver

The latest update of the Radeon Software Crimson Edition to 16.3 with driver version 16.15 not only comes with a list of fixed bugs, but also brings some new features, such as the addition of official Vulkan 1.0 support.

In addition, support has been added for scaling games for specific screens. This is especially useful if a monitor cannot properly scale a game if the game’s native resolution is not supported. It is also now possible to use Eyefinity with two instead of at least three monitors.

Another notable change is the support for external GPUs via a Thunderbolt 3 connection. AMD calls the technology XConnect. This allows an external Radeon R9 300-series gpu to be connected via Thunderbolt 3. The system is in principle plug and play, but the bios must have support for external gpus. AMD gives the Razer Blade Stealth laptop as an example. AMD has been working on a standard for external graphics cards for some time, something AMD already referred to earlier this month.

The drivers are for Windows machines only. Despite AMD’s good intentions to synchronize the release of the Linux drivers with that of the Windows drivers, this has not yet been successful. The last update for the Linux-Radeon Crimson software is dated December 18, 2015 with number 15.12 and thus still lacks Vulkan support.

Vulkan is a low-level API for controlling the GPU and provides direct access to deeper layers of graphics hardware. The api is royalty-free and it is an open standard. Currently Windows, Linux and Android support Vulkan. Apple has had its own Metal API since 2014.

The full list of release notes can be found on the AMD site, including improvements for several games, such as Gears of War Ultimate.