The Raspberry Pi 4 receives a massive performance boost with Vulkan 1.1 support

The Raspberry Pi 4 Model B was already a powerful single-board computer (SBC), as was the Compute Module 4 and the Pi 400. Last year, the Pi Foundation improved performance across the board with Vulkan 1.0 support, which it announced in a blog post. Incidentally, it took the Pi Foundation almost a year to develop a Vulkan 1.0 compliant driver for the Pi 4, Pi 400 and the Compute Module 4.

Now, it has brought Vulkan 1.1 compliance to the trio, too. While this may sound like an incremental upgrade, the Pi Foundation promises that it delivers worthwhile performance improvements in some applications. As the graph below shows, the Pi 4 family can now run Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) at over 60% faster in high-quality settings. Performance uplifts are smaller in other applications like Quake3e though, or UE4 at low settings.

Unfortunately, the performance increase does not make the Pi 4 family viable options for running UE4. It is also unclear if there will be a 32-bit Vulkan 1.1 driver, as CNX Software notes. The Pi Foundation states that it will start distributing a 64-bit driver soon, although it has not set a date for when it will do so.

Purchase the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B on Amazon