Silk.NET 2.0 Preview 5: The Final Preview

Bug fixes, improvements, 2.0's release date, and more. Go live with 2.0 Preview 5 - the last Silk.NET 2.0 preview before its full release date and the encapsulation of all bug reports and feedback on 2.0 given to date.

Today, we’re releasing Silk.NET 2.0 Preview 5. It contains most of our new improvements we're adding for 2.0's initial release date as well as a lot of bug fixes found during the 2.0 Preview cycle. Please install Preview 5, and test any workloads you can with it!

You can download Silk.NET 2.0 Preview 5 from NuGet: https://nuget.org/packages/Silk.NET/2.0.0-preview5.

Patch notes

1. Maths packaging fixes
2. Improved function pointer support
3. Vulkan bug fixes
4. OpenGL VSync fixes
5. Miscellaneous Linux library loading improvements (#279)
6. More OpenGL framebuffer bit-depth options (#286)
7. Shared OpenGL contexts (#334)
8. SDL windowing improvements (#350)
9. Minor assembly size improvements (#374)
10. Other miscellaneous fixes and improvements

Go live

Silk.NET 2.0 Preview 5 is the final 2.0 preview. It's classed as production-ready, meaning that you can use it in live production workloads if you so wish. We're working with some partners to port some massive projects over to Silk.NET 2.0 as part of the brand new "Silk Advanced Technology Group" in hopes we can streamline the process and document any "gotchas" for your benefit, as well as it being a testament to our confidence in the readiness of this preview.

Silk.NET 2.0 should be pretty much good to go now, as this preview has fixed all the bugs we've found with it thus far and has implemented most of the improvements we've got on the list for 2.0. There's certainly still some improvements to be made, which we'll be working on over the next few days, but the point here is Silk.NET 2.0 is ready for prime time and ready to be rolled out in your codebases!

Silk.NET 2.0's release date: 1st January 2021

We haven't announced this officially until now (although we've been working towards this all year and may have even dropped it in a few conversations), but we are ready to announce that 2.0 will leave preview on the 1st January 2021. With a new year, comes a new Silk.NET, and the 2.0 release will go down as the largest in Silk.NET history.

Being in development for over 7 months, it's taken us a lot to get to this point, but at the same time we've added a lot and have been working under the most unprecedented circumstances. A lot has changed since development started in May, for example Silk.NET 1.x is now at v1.9.0 instead of v1.2.1 as it was back then! Moreover, we've been delighted to welcome Kai - a new maintainer, maths junkie, and source generator guru - onto the team whom 2.0 would not be possible without.

And last but not least, we've been accepted into the .NET Foundation - a prestigous umbrella under which many projects within the .NET ecosystem reside - which you may have seen us talk about briefly in some places. We'll give that a dedicated blog post in due course, mainly because we're not that far along the process right now! However, if all goes according to plan we'll have more to share on this front in the first half of 2021.

We've come a long way, and now it's almost time to show off our progress in all its glory. Mark it down on the calendar: 1st January 2021!

Closing

Silk.NET 2.0 Preview 5 is the last preview of Silk.NET 2.0 and is recommended for anyone using Silk.NET - new users or existing users. We believe we've smoothed out the last wrinkles, and are almost ready to release proper. Whether you're at home, or hungover from a socially distanced rave, we hope that you'll enjoy the result of our work in 2020 and join us in kicking off the new year strong! You can, as you always have, get Silk.NET 2.0 Preview 5 from NuGet.