Zig for GPU Programming: A Modern Approach
GPU programming used to be synonymous with wrestling C++ compilers, bloated SDKs, and vendor-specific toolchains. That's changing. Now you can write GPU code in modern languages like Rust and Zig with fewer layers of abstraction. This post explores the current state of Zig's GPU backends and how they perform across Vulkan, OpenCL, and native ISAs. Zig supports SPIR-V, PTX, and AMDGCN, allowing the generation of native binaries loadable at runtime, eliminating the need for CUDA, HIP, or HLSL. While Vulkan and OpenCL are the major SPIR-V environments, differences between them impact Zig's SPIR-V backend's behavior test pass rates. Future plans include maturing the SPIR-V backend, providing CUDA/HIP runtime bindings, and adding more GPU algorithms to the standard library.
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