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Zink is something quite wonderful. A Linux Mesa driver that creates an OpenGL implementation on top of Vulkan and it just keeps on getting more impressive.

In another update blog post developer Mike Blumenkrantz has given what seems like their final blog post on Zink for 2021 and it's all sounding very positive. Along side Valve developer Samuel Pitoiset, work progress on Zink plus the AMD RADV Vulkan driver, so that now there's "only around 200 failures in the GL 4.6 conformance suite" meaning it's getting really close to being an official conforming driver there.

Oh and Bioshock Infinite now works with it too:

When Mesa 21.3 releases (hopefully late this year), the Zink driver is looking to be in great shape. Blumenkrantz teased lots of bug fixes to come, "fun surprises" to be revealed and they'll be showing off Zink with another driver at some point too - likely NVIDIA which was talked about before but it was too slow at the time.

For those asking what the point of the Zink driver is: eventually, we could see some drivers drop OpenGL (or have bad / unmaintained implementations) and so Zink bumping OpenGL over to Vulkan could be a really great win for preservation and much more.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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11 comments
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BielFPs Oct 29, 2021
Here's my prediction
Spoiler, click me
StalePopcorn Oct 30, 2021
Great news…btw, BioShock: Infinite, if you haven't played it you're missing out!
AzP Oct 30, 2021
Quote...their final blog post...
Quote...and they'll be showing off Zink...

Isn't it his own blog, or are there several people writing it?
tuubi Oct 30, 2021
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Quoting: AzP
Quote...their final blog post...
Quote...and they'll be showing off Zink...

Isn't it his own blog, or are there several people writing it?
Doesn't really matter. The grammar is perfectly valid.
Liam Dawe Oct 30, 2021
Quoting: tuubi
Quoting: AzP
Quote...their final blog post...
Quote...and they'll be showing off Zink...

Isn't it his own blog, or are there several people writing it?
Doesn't really matter. The grammar is perfectly valid.
Yep https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
nebadon2025 Nov 2, 2021
How did you get MangoHud working with this game, and can you be more specific how you launched the game with Zink, finding documentation on how to use it has been difficult, thanks!
tuubi Nov 2, 2021
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Quoting: nebadon2025How did you get MangoHud working with this game, and can you be more specific how you launched the game with Zink, finding documentation on how to use it has been difficult, thanks!
That image seems to be lifted directly from the original blog post.
nebadon2025 Nov 2, 2021
Quoting: nebadon2025How did you get MangoHud working with this game, and can you be more specific how you launched the game with Zink, finding documentation on how to use it has been difficult, thanks!

from what I have found so far you launch it like this
 
MESA_LOADER_DRIVER_OVERRIDE=zink vblank_mode=0

However performance is quite bad and I am getting a lot of blinking and artifacts on my 6800XT with Mesa 22.0-dev it worked slightly better on my Intel Xe graphics card (also on Mesa 22.0-dev) but it still blinks a bit. I would really like to know how to get MangoHud working with this game though, i tried all the opengl options and nothing seems to get it working, I am running the latest MangoHud from git as of a few hours prior to this posting.
AzP Nov 8, 2021
Quoting: Liam Dawe
Quoting: tuubi
Quoting: AzP
Quote...their final blog post...
Quote...and they'll be showing off Zink...

Isn't it his own blog, or are there several people writing it?
Doesn't really matter. The grammar is perfectly valid.
Yep https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they

Yes, but why? It only makes the text harder to read and brings no value whatsoever. Unless they specifically want to be described using genderless pronouns.
Liam Dawe Nov 8, 2021
Quoting: AzPYes, but why? It only makes the text harder to read and brings no value whatsoever. Unless they specifically want to be described using genderless pronouns.
It's how I speak, how I write and I really don't see the confusion. It's nothing to do with gender issues.
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