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Top 23 C++ Vulkan Projects
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ncnn
ncnn is a high-performance neural network inference framework optimized for the mobile platform
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filament
Filament is a real-time physically based rendering engine for Android, iOS, Windows, Linux, macOS, and WebGL2 (by google)
Project mention: Toyota Fluorite: "console-grade" Flutter game engine | news.ycombinator.com | 2026-02-11It does look like Filament has a web target:
https://github.com/google/filament
but if they're targeting embedded systems, maybe they haven't prioritized a public web demo yet. If the bulk of the project is actually in C++, making a web demo probably involves a whole WASM side-quest. I suspect there's a different amount of friction between "I wanna open source this cool project we're doing" and "I wanna build a rendering target we won't use to make the README look better."
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video2x
A machine learning-based video super resolution and frame interpolation framework. Est. Hack the Valley II, 2018.
Project mention: 10 Powerful Open Source AI Tools You Won’t Believe Are Still Free in 2026 | dev.to | 2025-11-03GitHub Repository: https://github.com/k4yt3x/video2x
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3d-game-shaders-for-beginners
🎮 A step-by-step guide to implementing SSAO, depth of field, lighting, normal mapping, and more for your 3D game.
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Project mention: PS3 Emulator Devs Politely Ask That People Stop Flooding It with AI PRs | news.ycombinator.com | 2026-05-10
> If someone can’t write their own Agent.md for a project how are they going to validate the auto-completed text?
> This strikes me as the ideal LLM first contribution/PR, a file explaining the projects standards and testing and structure.
Why should the project maintainers write such a file, when the info already exists within the README? It is duplicated work at best, and a definitive sign of the incapabilities of the agent to properly parse the project's contribution guidelines.
https://github.com/RPCS3/rpcs3/blob/master/README.md#contrib...
https://github.com/RPCS3/rpcs3/wiki/Coding-Style
https://github.com/RPCS3/rpcs3/wiki/Developer-Information
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Project mention: Linux gaming is faster because Windows APIs are becoming Linux kernel features | news.ycombinator.com | 2026-05-13
I think the actual answer you are looking for is this paragraph:
> These old workarounds got subtle edge cases wrong in ways that produced occasional hitches, deadlocks, or weird behavior in specific games, which are bugs that don't show up on benchmark charts but can absolutely ruin individual experiences. NTSYNC fixes those at the source by matching Windows behavior exactly, and that means as soon as your favorite distro moves to the new kernel version, whether it be Bazzite, CachyOS, Fedora, or a flavor of Ubuntu, they all get this much-needed fix.
That's the crux of the article. NTSYNC isn't faster, it's more "correct". Most games are around the same level of performance, with certain outliers both ways. Right now there isn't anything performance wise that Linux has to do that would impact all games. Just tweaks and additions to the different layers [1][2][3] in the same way driver vendors do. Much of the poor performance is for API violations and other shenanigans.
1: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/blob/main/src/uti...
2: https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/blob/master/src/util/confi...
3: https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/blob/maste...
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Waifu2x-Extension-GUI
Video, Image and GIF upscale/enlarge(Super-Resolution) and Video frame interpolation. Achieved with Waifu2x, Real-ESRGAN, Real-CUGAN, RTX Video Super Resolution VSR, SRMD, RealSR, Anime4K, RIFE, IFRNet, CAIN, DAIN, and ACNet.
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MNN
MNN: A blazing-fast, lightweight inference engine battle-tested by Alibaba, powering high-performance on-device LLMs and Edge AI.
Project mention: MNN – fast, lightweight deep learning framework | news.ycombinator.com | 2026-01-21 -
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cocos-engine
Cocos simplifies game creation and distribution with Cocos Creator, a free, open-source, cross-platform game engine. Empowering millions of developers to create high-performance, engaging 2D/3D games and instant web entertainment.
Project mention: From LayaAir to Cocos Creator: A Solo Dev's Engine Migration After iOS Builds Kept Crashing | dev.to | 2026-04-19Cocos Creator was the natural alternative:
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Project mention: Show HN: Xenia – A monospaced font built with a custom Python engine | news.ycombinator.com | 2026-01-18
There is a name collision with the Xenia emulator for the Xbox 360. https://xenia.jp/
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The-Forge
The Forge Cross-Platform Framework PC Windows, Steamdeck (native), Ray Tracing, macOS / iOS, Android, XBOX, PS4, PS5, Switch, Quest 2
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Project mention: Irrlicht Engine – a cross-platform realtime 3D engine | news.ycombinator.com | 2025-09-14
This, Ogre3D[0], and Wicked Engine seem to be the last of their kind
[0] https://github.com/OGRECave/ogre
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Project mention: LSFG-VK: Vulkan layer for frame generation via lossless scaling | news.ycombinator.com | 2025-12-29
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lemonade
Lemonade helps users discover and run local AI apps by serving optimized LLMs right from their own GPUs and NPUs. Join our discord: https://discord.gg/5xXzkMu8Zk
Project mention: Adding Gemma 4 speech recognition to a .NET desktop app: the llama-server sidecar that survived | dev.to | 2026-05-26Lemonade is strong on Ryzen AI hardware, but it is AMD-specific. Cross-vendor was a hard requirement.
NOTE:
The open source projects on this list are ordered by number of github stars.
The number of mentions indicates repo mentiontions in the last 12 Months or
since we started tracking (Dec 2020).
C++ Vulkan discussion
C++ Vulkan related posts
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Show HN: HeatSpectra: Realtime 3D Surface Heat Simulation
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MNN – fast, lightweight deep learning framework
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D7VK – Vulkan Direct3D 7 translation layer – Run old games on Linux in Wine
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LSFG-VK: Vulkan layer for frame generation via lossless scaling
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Learning OpenGL Part: The End - Model loading
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Forge Cross-Platform Framework
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Fp8 runs ~100 tflops faster when the kernel name has "cutlass" in it
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A note from our sponsor - SaaSHub
www.saashub.com | 13 Jun 2026
Index
What are some of the best open-source Vulkan projects in C++? This list will help you:
| # | Project | Stars |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | shadPS4 | 31,370 |
| 2 | ncnn | 23,359 |
| 3 | filament | 20,133 |
| 4 | video2x | 20,222 |
| 5 | 3d-game-shaders-for-beginners | 19,497 |
| 6 | rpcs3 | 18,936 |
| 7 | dxvk | 17,286 |
| 8 | Waifu2x-Extension-GUI | 16,627 |
| 9 | MNN | 15,473 |
| 10 | GLM | 11,007 |
| 11 | renderdoc | 10,785 |
| 12 | cocos-engine | 9,641 |
| 13 | xenia | 9,462 |
| 14 | Piccolo | 6,575 |
| 15 | The-Forge | 5,562 |
| 16 | slang | 5,364 |
| 17 | Vulkan-Samples | 5,283 |
| 18 | reshade | 5,236 |
| 19 | magnum | 5,165 |
| 20 | GamePlay | 4,850 |
| 21 | Ogre 3D | 4,594 |
| 22 | lsfg-vk | 4,478 |
| 23 | lemonade | 4,331 |
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