Release of Mesa 25.1: Experimental Features, Enhancements, and New Support for Vulkan and OpenGL

A new version of the open-source implementation of the OpenGL and Vulkan APIs has been released — [Mesa 25.1.0](https://www.mesa3d.org/). The first release in the Mesa 25.1.0 branch is currently labeled as experimental; a stable version, Mesa 25.1.1, will follow after final code stabilization. The previous release, Mesa 24.0.0, occurred in February 2024, while Mesa 25.0.0 was launched in February 2025.

Mesa 25.1 introduces support for Vulkan API version 1.4 across various drivers, including ANV for Intel GPUs, RADV for AMD GPUs, NVK for NVIDIA GPUs, Asahi for Apple GPUs, Turnip for Qualcomm GPUs, and the software rasterizer lavapipe (lvp). In emulator mode (vn), Vulkan 1.3 is supported; the PanVK driver for ARM Mali GPUs supports Vulkan 1.2, and the v3dv (Broadcom VideoCore for Raspberry Pi 4+) and dzn (Vulkan implementation over Direct3D 12) drivers support Vulkan 1.0.

Mesa also offers comprehensive support for OpenGL 4.6 in drivers such as iris (Intel Gen 8+ GPUs), radeonsi (AMD), Crocus (older Intel Gen 4-7 GPUs), zink, llvmpipe, virgl (the virtual GPU Virgil3D for QEMU/KVM), freedreno (Qualcomm Adreno), d3d12 (OpenGL on top of DirectX 12), and asahi (AGX GPUs used in Apple M1 and M2 chips). OpenGL 4.5 support is available for AMD (r600) and NVIDIA (nvc0) GPUs. For the softpipe (software rasterizer) and nv50 (NVIDIA NV50) drivers, OpenGL 3.3 is supported, while the panfrost (ARM Mali GPUs) and v3d (Broadcom VideoCore GPUs) drivers support OpenGL 3.1.

According to [OpenNET](https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=63202) and [Phoronix](https://www.phoronix.com/news/Mesa-25.2-AMDGPU-Queue-Priority), Mesa 25.1 introduces new features and notable changes, including:

— The PanVK driver has implemented Vulkan API support for ARM Mali GPUs based on the v10+ architecture. Support for YCbCr color spaces has been added. Types like storagePushConstant16, storageInputOutput16, and shaderFloat16 have been implemented, and support for Mali G720 and G725 GPUs has been introduced. MSAA (Multisample anti-aliasing) now supports both 8 and 16 color samples per pixel.
— OpenGL driver Panfrost now supports Mali GPUs G720, G725, and G925.
— The emulator mode (vn) now supports Vulkan API version 1.4.
— Development of the Asahi driver for Apple AGX GPUs used in Apple Silicon chips has been fully integrated into Mesa, and its UAPI has been accepted into the Linux kernel, eliminating the need for separate driver builds.
— The Vulkan NVK driver is now the default for NVIDIA Maxwell (GTX 700/800/900), Pascal (GTX 1000), and Volta (TITAN V) GPUs, delivering full Vulkan 1.4 support. Prior to this, NVK’s compatibility with Vulkan 1.4 was limited to NVIDIA GPUs based on the Turing, Ampere, and Ada architectures. Vulkan extension VK_MESA_image_alignment_control has also been added.
— OpenGL support for NVIDIA GPUs, starting from the Turing architecture, has been switched by default from the Nouveau (nvc0) driver to the Zink OpenGL driver combined with the NVK Vulkan driver. Zink provides an OpenGL 4.6 implementation over Vulkan, enabling hardware-accelerated OpenGL on devices supporting the Vulkan API, achieving performance close to native OpenGL implementations.
— The Window System Integration (WSI) interface for Vulkan now includes support for the Wayland color-management protocol, allowing for color management and high dynamic range (HDR) capabilities.
— The ANV Vulkan driver (Intel) has improved support for Intel GPUs based on the Xe2 architecture, including Intel Core Ultra Xe2 with Intel Arc integrated graphics and discrete Intel Arc B580/B570 «Battlemage» GPUs.
— The RADV Vulkan driver (AMD) has enhanced support for Radeon RX 9000 series GPUs (RDNA4/GFX12). Low-latency video encoding mode has been added, along with support for the Vulkan extensions VK_EXT_device_memory_report and VK_EXT_sample_locations.
— In the OpenGL Etnaviv driver for Vivante GPUs, support for the OpenGL extension KHR_partial_update has been introduced.
— The v3d OpenGL driver (Broadcom VideoCore for Raspberry Pi) now supports the extensions EXT_shader_framebuffer_image_fetch, EXT_shader_framebuffer_image_fetch_coherent, KHR_blend_equation_advanced, and KHR_blend_equation_advanced_coherent.
— The Clover OpenCL driver has been marked as deprecated, to be replaced by the Rusticl driver, which is written in Rust.
— The Rusticl driver has added support for the OpenCL extension cl_khr_spirv_linkonce_odr.
— The gallium-nine state tracker, providing support for the Direct3D 9 API, has been marked as deprecated and is scheduled for removal in the next release. Users are encouraged to use Vulkan and DXVK, which support D3D 8/9/10/11 instead.
— The gallium-xa state tracker, offering support for the VMWare virtual GPU («vmwgfx»), has also been marked as deprecated and is planned for removal in the following release.