OVERPanVK kbase brings an open Vulkan driver to Mali handhelds like the RG556 and RG557
Owners of Adreno handhelds have had a whole menu of custom GPU drivers for years. Mali owners have had the system driver and not much else. PanVK kbase, an open-source project by zenithblue-oss, is trying to change that: it builds Mesa's open PanVK Vulkan driver so it talks directly to the stock mali_kbase kernel driver that Android phones and handhelds already ship, which means no root and no custom kernel.
Which GPUs it covers
- Arch v9 (Valhall, JM): Mali-G57, G68, G77, G78. Supported from 0.1.0 RC3; the G57 is tested, the others have model entries but are untested.
- Arch v10: Mali-G610 and G710.
- Arch v11: Mali-G615 (the project's reference GPU, on a Poco X6 Pro) and G715.
- Arch v12 and v13: Immortalis-G720 and G925.
- Not covered: older Bifrost Mali such as the G52 and G76.
What that means for handhelds
In our catalog that puts the Unisoc T820 machines (RG556, RG406H, RG406V and RG Cube, all Mali-G57), the Dimensity 8300 RG557 and RG477M (Mali-G615), the Retroid Pocket 4 (G68 or G77) and the Helio G99 AYANEO Pocket Micro (G57) in range. Handhelds on the Helio G90T, like the Pocket Air Mini and KONKR Pocket Advance, use a Bifrost G76 and are out.
How well it works
The project's own test table shows its 38-test PanProbe suite passing on a Mali-G57, G610, G710, G615, G715 and Immortalis-G720 with RC3, and Direct3D 8 to 11 test scenes running through DXVK. On a G57 tablet the developer reports Need for Speed: Most Wanted racing at around 18 FPS, which is GPU-bound rather than crashing. The latest release, 0.1.0 RC3 lowmem from 13 October, is RC3 plus one change that stores BC1 RGB and BC7 textures in less memory (25 to 33 percent less) at a small quality cost; setting PANVK_BC_AFRC=0 brings back the exact decode.
How to try it
The easiest route is PanPlay, the project's own Windows game launcher (Wine, DXVK and the driver bundled), and PanProbe for checking Vulkan features on your device. The driver also targets apps that can load an alternate Vulkan driver, such as Winlator-style loaders. These are pre-releases, so keep your system driver as a fallback, and the developer asks testers to send logs to the project's Telegram group. Use the GPU driver hub and pick your device to see whether it applies to you; the hub now has a Mali filter.
Details come from the project's README and release notes on GitHub. We link to the official releases page only and don't rehost the files.