radv

RADV, short for Radeon Vulkan Driver, is an open-source Vulkan graphics driver for AMD Radeon GPUs. It is part of the Mesa 3D Graphics Library and provides a complete Vulkan API implementation for platforms supported by Mesa, primarily Linux. RADV is built on the Gallium3D architecture and works with the AMDGPU kernel driver and the DRM kernel interface to expose Vulkan devices to applications.

Development and governance: RADV is developed by the Mesa community with contributions from volunteers and corporate developers. Bas Nieuwenhuizen initiated the project, and it has become the default open-source Vulkan driver for AMD GPUs on many Linux distributions, complementing AMD's proprietary Vulkan drivers. The driver follows Mesa release cycles, and its feature set is updated with Vulkan revisions as supported by the underlying Mesa versions. As with Mesa, RADV is released under an open-source license (MIT-style) and distributed with most Linux distributions.

Features and status: RADV aims to provide feature parity with Vulkan across supported hardware, with ongoing work to support newer Vulkan versions and extensions. It supports multiple shader compilers within RADV, including an LLVM-based path and an ACO-based path for some GPUs, and it integrates with the Vulkan loader to present devices to applications. Hardware support varies by GPU generation, with newer GPUs receiving more complete support in newer Mesa releases. RADV is widely used in Linux gaming and professional workloads on AMD GPUs and is maintained as part of the Mesa project.