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GPU Performance API (GPUPerfAPI) is a powerful library providing access to GPU Performance Counters to help analyze the performance and characteristics of applications using a Radeon GPU.

GPUPerfAPI v3.11 adds support for raytracing counters in Vulkan on RDNA2 (Radeon RX 6000 Series) hardware:

• RayTriTests, and RayBoxTests: These counters collect the number of ray intersections for triangles and boxes, respectively.
• TotalRayTests: This counter collects the aggregated number of ray-box and ray-triangle intersection tests.
• RayTestsPerWave: This counter collects ray intersection test count at a more granular level – per wave.

OpenXR is composed of the core feature-set, multi-vendor extensions, and vendor-specific extensions. One of those vendors-specific extensions is VARJO_quad_views, available on Varjo HMDs as the name of the extension indicates. By default, in OpenXR, an application will generate two images, one for each eye. This is known as stereo views. But one unique capability of Varjo HMDs (except the Aero), is to have two displays per eye, allowing human eye resolution in the center area of the screen. The purpose of VARJO_quad_views is to enable the application to generate one view covering the entire field of view at the resolution of the context screen, and one inner view to match with the resolution and field of view of the focus screen (padded for taking into account the head movement and latency).

The VARJO_foveated_rendering extension is augmenting the VARJO_quad_views extension by adding eye tracking. The idea is that every rendered frame the application will be provided a different position of the inner view based on where the eyes are looking at. But also, since we know where the eyes are looking, the size of the inner view is much reduced from the default quad_views. And then the resolution of the outer view can also be reduced, as there is no need to even calculate as many pixels as the context screen can display, because even though it is not as high resolution as the focus screen, it is still higher resolution than the eye can detect at its periphery.

Join us to help drive the evolution of Machine Learning acceleration standards. ML developers lament the growing fragmentation in the ML ecosystem. Khronos knows that open and royalty-free standards can play an essential role in reducing fragmentation, reducing costs, and providing the industry participants the opportunity to grow. Based on feedback from previous summit and discussions, Khronos is creating a coalition of interested parties to meet the needs of the ML community for hardware acceleration.

Tom Acland, CEO of 3DEXCITE, explaines how the shopping experience is shifting from 2D to 3D thanks to glTF.

Vulkan Portability aims to counter platform fragmentation by encouraging layered implementations of Vulkan functionality over Metal, DX12, and other APIs. Vulkan Portability enables Vulkan applications to be reliably deployed across diverse platforms.

Khronos released a provisional version of Vulkan Portability Extension 1.0 in September 2020. The VK_KHR_portability_subset extension allows a non-conformant Vulkan implementation to be built on top of another non-Vulkan graphics API and identifies the difference between that implementation and a fully-conformant native Vulkan implementation. The extension is detailed in the Vulkan Specification.

For already released applications that are expecting to see only fully Vulkan conformant devices, a backward-compatibility issue exists. To solve the backward-compatibility issue, Khronos has released the new Vulkan Loader extension, VK_KHR_portability_enumeration. The purpose of this extension is to enable or disable enumeration of portability (non-conformant) implementations.

HTC VIVE announced developers can now join the OpenXR public beta program for the VIVE Focus 3. Developers have access to start new projects or port existing applications to multiple XR devices. OpenXR compatibility benefits consumers in addition to developers, giving them more flexibility to enjoy their VR content on multiple devices, including high-performance headsets like VIVE Focus 3.

Alibaba Group was founded in 1999. Our mission is to make it easy to do business anywhere. We enable businesses to transform the way they market, sell and operate and improve their efficiencies. We provide the technology infrastructure and marketing reach to help merchants, brands, retailers and other businesses to leverage the power of new technology to engage with their users and customers and operate in a more efficient way.

The release of the OpenCL 3.0 specification was a significant milestone for this open standard for low-level heterogeneous parallel programming, creating a pervasive baseline that can be cleanly extended with new functionality requested by developers. But a strong open standard ecosystem is much more than just an API document and Khronos is making significant investments to improve the OpenCL developer experience. Read on to discover the latest updates to the OpenCL SDK and what is coming on the SDK roadmap!

AUTOSAR™ (AUTomotive Open System ARchitecture) and The Khronos® Group have signed a Memorandum of Understanding and entered into a collaboration liaison to foster synergy between the two organizations to encourage standardization in the field of Automotive and Future Intelligent Mobility. This joint technical collaboration between AUTOSAR and Khronos is intended to coordinate common requirements and developments with a focus on accelerated graphics and computing in safety critical markets.