Slipping under my radar until now was the Vulkan API 1.3.297 spec update released last week that introduces a new extension, VK_EXT_present_mode_fifo_latest_ready.

The Vulkan 1.3.297 spec update is a small one in just fixing three issues with the documentation and then adding one new extension: VK_EXT_present_mode_fifo_latest_ready. The VK_EXT_present_mode_fifo_latest_ready extension comes courtesy of NVIDIA engineers and provides a new present mode.

VK_EXT_present_mode_fifo_latest_ready is described in the extension documentation as:

"This device extension adds a new present mode, VK_PRESENT_MODE_FIFO_LATEST_READY_EXT.

This tear-free present mode behaves much like VK_PRESENT_MODE_FIFO_KHR, except that each vertical blanking period dequeues consecutive present requests until the latest ready is found to update the current image.

While this seems similar in concept to VK_PRESENT_MODE_MAILBOX_KHR, the fundamental difference is that the processing of the present requests is done during vblank. From the application perspective, this means for example, that in a flip-based model, a single vblank may: cause multiple swapchain images to be released at once, while VK_PRESENT_MODE_MAILBOX_KHR may: continuously be releasing images as new requests become ready.

This additional present mode is useful when using a time-based present API."

NVIDIA released the 550.40.78 Linux driver and 563.22 Windows beta drivers that add support for VK_EXT_present_mode_fifo_latest_ready. So far I haven't seen any other Vulkan drivers expose this new extension.

More details on the Vulkan 1.3.297 spec update via [1]GitHub .



[1] https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Docs/commit/74d7efc182c8e91002221c68f321c05fd596cc70