Vulkan 1.4.340 released with new extension to improve DirectX performance on Linux

We're seeing excitement build up from the Vulkan API release 1.4.340, with a new extension that should eventually improve DirectX performance on Linux. Named VK_EXT_descriptor_heap it was worked on by the likes of AMD, Arm, Valve, Nintendo, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Intel, Google and more.

Before getting overly excited though, there's some things to keep in mind. Graphics drivers need to be updated to actually support it, and Valve needs to add in support to Proton via DXVK and VKD3D-Proton updates. So we're still looking at a while before seeing improvements actually land in the hands of gamers.

NVIDIA released a developer-focused Vulkan Beta driver (580.94.16) with early support for it, and for the open source Mesa drivers there's open code drafts for both AMD and Intel.

More about the extension from the Vulkan documentation:

This extension allows explicit management of descriptors, and the memory used to store descriptors, conceptualised as descriptor heaps. Descriptor heap memory can be accessed as any other memory, enabling management of descriptors on both CPU and the GPU.

This extension was developed based on issues discovered with VK_EXT_descriptor_buffer. There are more constraints on how it is implemented, to provide more portable guarantees and more predictable performance characteristics. For instance, rather than an arbitrary number of sampler or resource buffers, there is exactly one sampler heap and exactly one resource heap.

This extension also eliminates descriptor sets and pipeline layouts completely; instead applications can look descriptors up solely by their offset into a heap. Shaders still using descriptor set and binding decorations can still be mapped to heaps through an API that maps set and binding decorations to heap offsets, either as constants or through push data. This new mapping API also enables a much more straightforward mapping to HLSL shaders using the root signature and descriptor table interfaces.

The push constant API has also been replaced with the push data interface, which aims to provide much more clarity about how data is passed to the shader, without requiring any mapping information to be provided during pipeline or shader creation. Mappings are still available for shaders written for the legacy interface.

There is also a much clearer path for mapping shader constant data, with two recommended options for mapping constant data through push data; either directly in push data, or through a device address stored in push data, both of which can be mapped to shaders with set and binding interfaces.

What a lot of gamers on Linux are hoping is that this will help bridge the performance gap between Linux and Windows (mostly on NVIDIA) and between AMD / NVIDIA on Linux, which has been a problem for quite some time. A topic on the NVIDIA forum has over 580 replies talking about it all.

2026 continues to be a big and exciting year for Linux gaming!