A GPU driver with Vulkan API support has been prepared for old Raspberry Pi boards

Introduced First stable release of the open graphics driver RPi-VK-Driver 1.0, implementing support for the Vulkan graphics API for older Raspberry Pi boards equipped with Broadcom Videocore IV GPU. The driver is suitable for all Raspberry Pi models released before the advent of Raspberry Pi 4, from "Zero" and "1 Model A" to "3 Model B+" and "Compute Module 3+". The driver was developed by Martin Thomas (Martin Thomas), an engineer from NVIDIA; however, the development was conducted as a personal project unrelated to NVIDIA (the driver was developed over the last two years in his spare time). The code is distributed is licensed under the MIT License.

Since the capabilities of the VideoCore IV GPU, which is equipped in older Raspberry Pi models, are insufficient for a full implementation of Vulkan, only a subset of the Vulkan API has been implemented, which does not cover the entire standard but tries to follow it as much as the hardware allows. Nevertheless, the available functionality is sufficient for many applications and games, and performance significantly surpasses OpenGL drivers due to more efficient memory management, multi-threaded command processing on the GPU, and direct control over GPU operations. The driver also supports features such as MSAA (Multisample Anti-Aliasing), low-level shaders, and performance counters. Notably, there is a lack of support for GLSL shaders, which are currently unavailable at this stage of development.

By the same author has been published the port of Quake 3 for Raspberry Pi, serving as a demonstration of the new driver's capabilities. The game is based on the ioQuake3 engine, which has been enhanced with a modular Vulkan-based rendering backend initially developed by the Quake III Arena Kenny Edition. Using the new driver in the game achieved rendering of over 100 frames per second (FPS) on the Raspberry Pi 3B+ at a resolution of 720p.

Recall that the Raspberry Pi Foundation, in collaboration with Igalia, is conducting the development of its Vulkan driver, which is in the early stages of development and will be ready to launch some real applications in the second half of 2020. The specified driver is limited to support the VideoCore VI graphics accelerator used from the Raspberry Pi 4 model onward and does not support older boards. Compared to OpenGL, using Vulkan allows for performance improvements of graphics applications and games.

Source: opennet.ru