3.6.7. Vulkan
The Vulkan® libraries packaged with Processor SDK Linux J721s2 offer acceleration for graphics stacks such as Qt and GTK. The drivers run on an ARM core and programs the firmware running inside a GPU core with rendering commands submitted by the user applications.
Vulkan® is a relatively new API that focuses on increased verbosity and control over the device as opposed to OpenGL® ES, which was initially intended to abstract common processing functions for developers. As a result, it is usually advised to use an existing abstraction framework, such as the before mentioned GTK or Qt widget based frameworks.
Similar to OpenCL™, Vulkan® has an Installable Client Driver (ICD) Loader to allow applications to query and pick the device it deems necessary. It does not relying on a predefined mapping between a chosen display and backing vendor acceleration implementation. This means that typically an application that wants to use Vulkan® should link against an ICD loader library instead of directly using a vendor specific library.
A useful tool for debugging Vulkan® ICD Loaders and devices is vulkaninfo. This command, when run without any arguments will present a list of all supported devices, associated parameters, and supported extensions.
For more information about Vulkan® extensions see: