Today, LunarG released new Windows, Linux, and macOS SDKs for Vulkan header 1.3.231, including two new features for GFXReconstruct: Virtual Swapchain and JSON Lines Conversion. New Features Added to All SDKs Two new and important features have been added to GFXReconstruct: 1) the “Virtual Swapchain” feature fixes incorrect screen output when swapchain image acquisition order or count is different on the target platform, and 2) the new gfxrecon-convert tool (a.k.a. gfxrecon.py convert) produces JSONlines output representing all the Vulkan commands in a GFXReconstruct capture. For more information, see the GFXReconstruct documentation. The Vulkan Configurator (vkconfig) has been updated to improve quality and stability. See the Vulkan Configurator documentation for more information. The HW Capability viewer from GPUInfo.org is included in the SDK (with an option to auto-launch). The Vulkan headers now include many new extensions. Note that extensions are optional and may not be implemented by the underlying driver/ICD. Applications can now query for the presence of these new features. Refer to the release notes for more information. New Features Added Only to the macOS SDK MoltenVK now supports Vulkan 1.2! Here’s a list of new features that have been added in addition to those in the Windows and/or Linux SDKs: Added support for the following extensions: VK_KHR_shader_float_controls and VK_KHR_spirv_1_4 Added Vulkan semaphore functional improvements. Fixed memory leaks when configured for prefilling Metal command buffers. Fixed occasional crashes from retention of MVKSwapchain for future drawable presentations. Fixed crash in vkCreateSwapchainKHR() on macOS 10.14 and earlier. Added non-functional Vulkan 1.3 core function stubs to avoid link errors with some external libraries. MoltenVKShaderConverter tool automatically maps bindings when converting GLSL. Updated VK_MVK_MOLTENVK_SPEC_VERSION to version 36. Updated to the latest SPIRV-Cross See the MoltenVK release notes for additional and more detailed update information. For More Details For additional details, please read the Release Notes for Linux, Release Notes for Windows, or Release Notes for macOS. For More Information about LunarG LunarG software engineering experts create innovative products and services for open-source and commercial customers using leading-edge 3D graphics and compute technologies, including Vulkan, SPIR-V, OpenXR, and OpenGL. We have strengths in performance analysis and tuning, runtime and tools development, shader optimizations, driver development, and porting engines and applications to Vulkan. For more information about LunarG, please check out our LunarG.com website.
LunarG’s Vulkan SDK for Linux Now Builds and Runs on a Raspberry Pi 4
LunarG’s Vulkan SDK for Linux now builds and runs on a Raspberry Pi 4 with the latest Raspberry Pi OS. See our Linux Tarball Getting Started guide to find out how to install Vulkan on your Raspberry Pi and build the SDK!
New Vulkan 1.3.224.1 SDKs Add NVIDIA Best Practices and Tool to Combine Profiles
Released 21 August 2022 (1.3.224.0) Updated 25 August 2022 (1.3.224.1) Today LunarG released new Windows, Linux, and macOS SDKs for Vulkan header 1.3.224, including the NVIDIA Best Practices, a Vulkan Profiles tool to combine multiple profiles, and an alpha version of the Synchronization Validation inter-buffer-hazards feature.
New Vulkan 1.3.216.0 SDKs add AMD Memory Allocator and new extensions
Released 14 June 2022 Today LunarG released new Windows, Linux, and macOS SDKs for Vulkan header 1.3.216 that include the AMD Memory Allocator, Validation Layer Fine-Grained Locking by default, vkconfig enhancements, and new extensions, including enhancements for the Portability Enumeration extension for the macOS SDK. The prior SDK supported Vulkan header 1.3.211.
New Vulkan 1.3.211.0 SDKs add VOLK plus new Vulkan extensions
Released 18 April 2022 Today LunarG released new Windows, Linux, and macOS SDKs for Vulkan header 1.3.211 that include VOLK, several new extensions, and updated validation layers. The prior SDK supported Vulkan header 1.3.204.
LunarG Releases New Vulkan 1.3.204.0 SDKs with Profiles Toolset and New Extensions
Today LunarG released new Windows, Linux, and macOS SDKs for Vulkan header 1.3.204 that include Vulkan 1.3 support, Vulkan Profiles tooling solution, improved validation layer performance for multi-threaded applications, and several new extensions. The prior SDK supported Vulkan header 1.2.198. Read on for more information.
Take the 2021 Vulkan SDK & Ecosystem Survey
We’re asking for your help again. Please share your Vulkan developer experiences in this anonymous survey to help LunarG collect data and make smart choices about current and future investments in Vulkan ecosystem tools. This survey is a cooperative effort between LunarG and the Khronos Vulkan Working Group. Read on for the survey link and more information.
LunarG Releases New 1.2.198.0 SDKs
Today LunarG released new Windows, Linux, and macOS SDKs for Vulkan header 1.2.198 that include support for many new extensions. The prior SDK supported Vulkan header 1.2.189. Read on for more information.


