Mesa 23.3 Linux Graphics Stack Brings NVK Vulkan Driver, Raspberry Pi 5 Support

The Mesa 3D Project announced today the release and general availability of Mesa 23.3 as the latest version of this open-source graphics stack for GNU/Linux distributions and other platforms.

Highlights of the Mesa 23.3 graphics stack include official support for the Raspberry Pi 5 single-board computer via the v3d (OpenGL) and v3dv (Vulkan) drivers, as well as the NVK Vulkan driver developed by Collabora for NVIDIA hardware, which recently reached Vulkan 1.0 conformance.

Other highlights of the Mesa 23.3 graphics stack release include OpenGL ES 3.1 support for the Asahi driver, support for the VK_EXT_pipeline_robustness Vulkan extension for the Intel ANV Vulkan driver, support for the VK_KHR_maintenance5 Vulkan extension for the Radeon RADV Vulkan driver, and support for the VK_KHR_cooperative_matrix Vulkan extension for RADV/GFX11+ hardware.

The Asahi driver also received support for several new OpenGL extensions, namely GL_ARB_compute_shader, GL_ARB_shader_atomic_counters, GL_ARB_shader_image_load_store, GL_ARB_shader_image_size, GL_ARB_shader_storage_buffer_object, GL_ARB_sample_shading, GL_OES_sample_variables, GL_OES_shader_multisample_interpolation, and GL_OES_gpu_shader5.

“I’m happy to announce a new feature release, 23.3.0. It includes NVK, a new reverse-engineered Vulkan driver for Nvidia hardware. This driver is still in an experimental phase, not quite ready for prime time yet, but adventurous users can give it a go,” said developer Eric Engestrom. “It also includes a lot of work on the Asahi driver, but it’s still not ready to be used as the UAPI isn’t stable yet and thus cannot be merged upstream.”

Of course, this release also includes numerous fixes for a wide range of games, which should now work a lot better on your Linux systems. These include Forza Horizon 5, Overwatch 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Dead by Daylight, War Thunder, Dead Space, Valheim, DiRT Rally, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Dirt 5, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, Crypt, Battlefield 4, Counter-Strike 2, as well as The Lords of the Fallen (2023).

The list of games that received improvements in Mesa 23.3 continues with Wolfenstein: The New Order, Deep Rock Galactic, Wargame: Red Dragon, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Doom Eternal, Starfield, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Resident Evil 6, The Spirit and the Mouse, Penumbra: Overture, Borderlands 3, Quake II RTX, Hellblade, Rage 2, World War Z, Death Stranding, Deathloop, and Baldur’s Gate 3.

For Android platforms, the Mesa 23.3 graphics stack brings support for EGL_ANDROID_blob_cache when disk caching is disabled. There are also various improvements to Collabora’s Zink and Panfrost graphics drivers, as well as to the RadeonSI and r600 drivers for legacy AMD Radeon GPUs.

The Mesa 23.3 graphics driver is available for download right now from the release announcement page linked in the first paragraph, but it should also be available shortly on the official website, that only if you know how to compile it yourself or for system integrators.

Meanwhile, you should keep an eye on the stable software repositories of your GNU/Linux distributions for the new Mesa graphics stack if you want to enjoy the best possible Linux gaming and 3D graphics experience using open-source graphics drivers.