Open-Source NVIDIA Vulkan Driver "NVK" Merges Mesh Shader Support

Mesa's NVK open-source NVIDIA Vulkan driver now has mesh shader support as another significant step forward for this driver in being able to handle modern Linux gaming and other workloads.

VK_EXT_mesh_shader is the cross-vendor mesh shader extension for replacing the traditional pipeline with two new programmable stages for task shaders and mesh shaders.

The mesh shader support for the NVK driver and NAK compiler back-end has been on their TODO list since 2023 while only today realized in Mesa Git.

This merge by Mary Guillemard gets the Vulkan mesh shader support squared away for the NVK driver in next quarter's Mesa 26.2 release.