Vulkan 1.4.358 Released With New Image Tiling Control Extension

After two weeks without any Vulkan spec update, Vulkan 1.4.358 was released overnight. Besides the usual assortment of minor clarifications/fixes, Vulkan 1.4.358 introduces one new extension: VK_EXT_image_tiling_control.

VK_EXT_image_tiling_control is a new extension worked on by developers from AMD, Valve, Samsung, NVIDIA, Intel, and Nintendo. VK_EXT_image_tiling_control allows for per-image selection of optimal tiling arrangements.

The intent with VK_EXT_image_tiling_control is to allow applications to tune the optimal tiling arrangement for their needs. The proposal text for the image tiling control extension explains:

"Image tiling arrangements present a typical space-time tradeoff in computing, where minimizing memory space is at odds with minimizing GPU access time. The existing options of `VkImageTiling` allow an application to favor access time with `VK_IMAGE_TILING_OPTIMAL` or memory space with `VK_IMAGE_TILING_LINEAR`. However, if an implementation supports multiple, optimal tiling arrangements, each with different access characteristics and memory size requirements, the implementation must decide among them.

While an implementation often has sufficient information during image creation to perform heuristics, the application developer has this information combined with higher-level usage expectations and platform knowledge to determine the desired metrics. Cases have been identified where the driver cannot make the best choice for all applications without more details."

In addition to introducing VK_EXT_image_tiling_control, Vulkan 1.4.358 also upstreams the changes from the safety critical Vulkan SC 1.0.22 specification.

More details for those interested via this commit.