As of today in Mesa 25.3-devel Git, the Intel "ANV" open-source Vulkan driver for Linux systems is finally exposing the VK_EXT_shader_object extension.

VK_EXT_shader_object was [1]introduced in March 2023 with Vulkan 1.3.246 after being worked on by a variety of companies. VK_EXT_shader_object adds a new shader object type to represent a single compiled shader stage. The Vulkan shader objects are intended to be more flexible but comparably performant alternative to pipeline objects.

Some Mesa drivers like Zink were [2]very quick in adding support . The Mesa NVK NVIDIA Vulkan driver [3]added support in early 2024 . The Radeon RADV driver enables shader object support [4]by default in Mesa 24.1 for Q2'2024.

Now in late 2025, the Intel ANV driver is finally and landed its patches around VK_EXT_shader_object. [5]This merge that landed in Mesa Git a few hours ago finishes up the lengthy affair of adding VK_EXT_shader_object to the Intel Vulkan driver. Now it will be ready for its stable debut in November with Mesa 25.3.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Vulkan-1.3.246-VK-shader-object

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Zink-EXT_shader_object-Quest

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/news/NVK-ESO-GPL-Support

[4] https://www.phoronix.com/news/RADV-Default-ESO-Support

[5] https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/merge_requests/34872