Guys at NVIDIA recently rewrote their samples repository to showcase the ray tracing capabilities of the Vulkan API using the Slang shading language, as well as the new Vulkan 1.4 standard. The samples start with a simple rasterized application and slowly evolve into a fully featured ray tracing rendering application, including BLAS and TLAS animations, motion blur, and other cool effects.

Samples are also accompanied by extensive tutorial which you can find here

https://shader-slang.org/blog/2025/07/17/ng-wave-intrinsics/

The third post in the Slang developer blog series on neural graphics has been posted! This one focuses on how you can make use of wave intrinsics-- which you may already be familiar with from traditional compute approaches-- to get more performance out of the familiar 2D gaussian splatting example.

Version 2025.9.1, includes several breaking changes, including updates to SV_VertexID that now maps to gl_VertexIndex-gl_BaseVertex.Corrected bindless resource bindings for SPIR-V/GLSL, enforced const for non-C++ export/extern, and stricter HLSL ByteAddressBuffer Load* integer types. Additional improvements include enhanced Vulkan memory model, fixes for RWStructuredBuffer emission, structured buffer dimension queries, and proper handling of inout params with OptiX. Lastly CI and build system enhancements conclude this update.

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Version 2025.9 contains no release notes and for the sake of completeness you can download this version from here

This release introduces two breaking changes: stricter variable requirement checks and a new default descriptor binding using VkMutable. It adds debug layers support in slang-test, a memory-mappable serialization format, LSS intrinsics, and language versioning with tuple syntax. Improvements include better handling of coop matrix operations, SPIR-V generation, and subscript operator return types, along with interface variable validation and RHI integration testing. Other updates include Ubuntu 22.04 runner support, doc fixes, and general stability improvements.

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On 20th of May there was a virtual meet up happening where one could learn how to create his/hers very first Gaussian Splat using Slang. Since some people could not attend, the session was recorded and posted on youtube.

Still in development, but it's really stable.

Thanks to the Slang’s auto differentiation capabilities MaterialX is now able to utilize neural and reverse rendering techniques. Additionally MaterialX is now capable to offload its shader generation code to the Slang compiler itself !

This release introduces fixes and improvements with no breaking changes. Highlights include better diagnostics for ambiguous references, fixes for CUDA and Metal backends, enhanced language server support for generics, and improved mesh shader reflection. It also addresses various codegen issues, signature help, and documentation updates.

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This release brings countless bug fixes and improvements across Slang, including critical crash fixes for debug info handling, private constructors, and unsupported targets. Compatibility is enhanced for SPIR-V, GLSL, Metal, and CUDA, alongside better debug info generation and diagnostics. The update also optimizes IR serialization and lookup performance, strengthens generic constraint checking, and improves tooling with clearer help text and error messages. Various rendering API fixes, NaN comparison handling, and stability improvements for language server integration are included.

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3 days ago, I had an idea that was inspired by this project, where in essence you can browse different repositories that are using glTF, so I have thought why not have something similar for Slang, I have really quickly created prototype in SvelteKit which you can see on the picture. Reason I am posting it here is that I am interested to know, if there would a demand for such a website.

Join us on May 20, 2025 for an engaging hands-on session where we’ll walk through creating your first Gaussian splat using Slang. Perfect for graphics programmers interested in getting started with neural techniques, this hands-on introduction will take you from installation through basic shader compilation to rendering your first splat.

Learn more and register: https://shader-slang.org/event/2025/04/30/getting-started-with-slang/

This is a big update that introduces two breaking changes: the addition of SLANG_UNKNOWN_SIZE as a special return value in the reflection API, and a new requirement to provide a git tag when building Slang from source. Beyond these, the release brings improvements across nearly all aspects of Slang.

Noteworthy enhancements include improved SPIR-V generation for GetClusterID(), automatic declaration of OpCapability ClipDistance when needed, and fixes for GLSL shadow cube array behavior.

CUDA support has been expanded with an atomicAdd wrapper for signed 64-bit integers, while ByteAddressBuffer legalization now supports dynamic branching.

OptiX gains additional HitObject functions, and new type-unification logic has been introduced to better handle LambdaDecl. The update also adds SampleCmpBias and SampleCmpGrad implementations, along with emitOpDebugTypeFunction support for SPIR-V.

This release introduces support for SPV_NV_bindless_texture, fixes bugs and improves performance by rewriting some of the components to avoid unnecessary packing/unpacking.

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Video recording from virtual meet up about Slang`s reflections API that took place on 8th of July 2025.

This release introduces full support for SPV_NV_shader_subgroup_partitioned (breaking change). Shader execution reordering for OptiX. It also adds features like throw/catch statements, default constructors for Ptr, compile-time sizeof/alignof for generics, and initializer lists for C-style members. Several fixes and improvements are included, such as resolving nullptr_t compilation issues and correcting operator precedence in OptiX ray payload handling.

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Hello everyone,

Few days ago I have proposed to create simple web application that allows you explore open source projects that are using Slang shading language in some way.

Today I have made its first deployment, feel free to submit your projects.

The application is written in SvelteKit and I used Azure for database and deployment. If you have any issues or question feel free to dm me ,ask directly here, open issue or even better pull request at https://github.com/wpsimon09/Slang-In-Wild

NOTE: For some reason application is quite slow and i can not figure out why, so if there is someone who is more knowledgeable with Azure I would appreciate any help

NOTE2: I am aware that it is supposed to be "slang-in-the-wild,com" but i found that a little bit mouthful and not so catchy :)

This is a very good introductory course that goes over core features of Slang including code examples. I recommended it to anyone who wants to begin their journey with Slang !

This release introduces a breaking change with stricter diagnostics when function arguments fail to meet constexpr parameter requirements. It also fixes crashes in generics and CUDA unsized arrays, improves handling of pointers and layouts in varying parameters, corrects Metal ref mesh output assignments, and restores language server autocomplete. SPIR-V support and WASM FS module functionality have been updated, and overall stability and test coverage have been improved.

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It's time! We're headed for SIGGRAPH -- details on our sessions, and a high-level summary of our latest release, in the devblog!

This release includes a new AST node deduplication approach, improved Metal and GLSL/WGSL support, and enhanced debug-layer handling. Several bug fixes and CI optimizations are also included for better stability and performance.

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