Back in early May was the [1]experimental enabling of Vulkan descriptor heaps for the Intel ANV open-source driver . After nearly two months of continued testing and improvements, the VK_EXT_descriptor_heap support for Intel graphics on Linux is now enabled by default.

Intel's ANV Vulkan driver for Mesa 26.2, due for a stable release in August, has flipped on descriptor heap support by default. VK_EXT_descriptor_heap is no longer hidden by an environment variable in now being deemed stable.

VK_EXT_descriptor_heap allows for the explicit management of descriptors and the memory used for descriptors. This extension is important for improving the Steam Play (VKD3D-Proton) experience, can help reduce CPU overhead, and all around an efficiency win for modern Vulkan API usage. The timing is great for this Intel default enabling with yesterday's [2]DXVK 3.0 enabling descriptor heap usage by default on capable drivers.

More details on the Intel descriptor heap default enabling can be found via [3]this Mesa merge request .



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-ANV-Descriptor-Heap-Merge

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/news/DXVK-3.0-Release

[3] https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/merge_requests/42465