Instructions for building this repository on Linux, Windows, and MacOS.
If you intend to contribute, the preferred work flow is for you to develop your contribution in a fork of this repository in your GitHub account and then submit a pull request. Please see the CONTRIBUTING.md file in this repository for more details.
This repository contains the source code necessary to build the desktop Vulkan loader and its tests.
The install target installs the following files under the directory indicated by install_dir:
/lib : The Vulkan loader library/bin : The Vulkan loader library DLL (Windows)C99 capable compilerCMake version 3.17.2 or greaterGitC++17 capable compilerThis repository does not contain a Vulkan-capable driver. You will need to obtain and install a Vulkan driver from your graphics hardware vendor or from some other suitable source if you intend to run Vulkan applications.
This repository attempts to resolve some of its dependencies by using components found from the following places, in this order:
Dependencies that cannot be resolved by the SDK or installed packages must be resolved with the “install directory” override and are listed below. The “install directory” override can also be used to force the use of a specific version of that dependency.
This repository has a required dependency on the Vulkan Headers repository. The Vulkan-Headers repository contains the Vulkan API definition files that are required to build the loader.
The loader tests depend on the Google Test library and on Windows platforms depends on the Microsoft Detours library.
To build the tests, pass both -D UPDATE_DEPS=ON and -D BUILD_TESTS=ON options when generating the project:
cmake ... -D UPDATE_DEPS=ON -D BUILD_TESTS=ON ...
This will ensure googletest and detours is downloaded and the appropriate version is used.
A common convention is to place the build directory in the top directory of the repository and place the install directory as a child of the build directory. The remainder of these instructions follow this convention, although you can place these directories in any location.
There is a Python utility script, scripts/update_deps.py, that you can use to gather and build the dependent repositories mentioned above. This program uses information stored in the scripts/known-good.json file to checkout dependent repository revisions that are known to be compatible with the revision of this repository that you currently have checked out.
You can choose to do this automatically or manually. The first step to either is cloning the Vulkan-Loader repo and stepping into that newly cloned folder:
git clone git@github.com:KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Loader.git cd Vulkan-Loader
On the other hand, if you choose to let the CMake scripts do all the heavy-lifting, you may just trigger the following CMake commands:
cmake -S . -B build -D UPDATE_DEPS=On cmake --build build
To manually update the dependencies you now must create the build folder, and run the update deps script followed by the necessary CMake build commands:
mkdir build cd build python ../scripts/update_deps.py cmake -C helper.cmake .. cmake --build .
update_deps.py script fetches and builds the dependent repositories in the current directory when it is invoked.--dir option for update_deps.py can be used to relocate the dependent repositories to another arbitrary directory using an absolute or relative path.update_deps.py script generates a file named helper.cmake and places it in the same directory as the dependent repositories. This file contains CMake commands to set the CMake *_INSTALL_DIR variables that are used to point to the install artifacts of the dependent repositories. The -C helper.cmake option is used to set these variables when you generate the build files.winpty update_deps.py in order to avoid buffering all of the script's “print” output until the end and to retain the ability to interrupt script execution.update_deps.py --help to list additional options and read the internal documentation in update_deps.py for further information.This repository contains generated source code in the loader/generated directory which is not intended to be modified directly. Instead, changes should be made to the corresponding generator in the scripts directory. The source files can then be regenerated using scripts/generate_source.py.
Run python scripts/generate_source.py --help to see how to invoke it.
A helper CMake target loader_codegen is also provided to simplify the invocation of scripts/generate_source.py.
Note: By default this helper target is disabled. To enable it, add -D LOADER_CODEGEN=ON to CMake, as shown below.
cmake -S . -B build -D LOADER_CODEGEN=ON cmake --build . --target loader_codegen
When generating build files through CMake, several options can be specified to customize the build. The following is a table of all on/off options currently supported by this repository:
| Option | Platform | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| BUILD_TESTS | All | OFF | Controls whether or not the loader tests are built. |
| BUILD_WSI_XCB_SUPPORT | Linux | ON | Build the loader with the XCB entry points enabled. Without this, the XCB headers should not be needed, but the extension VK_KHR_xcb_surface won't be available. |
| BUILD_WSI_XLIB_SUPPORT | Linux | ON | Build the loader with the Xlib entry points enabled. Without this, the X11 headers should not be needed, but the extension VK_KHR_xlib_surface won't be available. |
| BUILD_WSI_WAYLAND_SUPPORT | Linux | ON | Build the loader with the Wayland entry points enabled. Without this, the Wayland headers should not be needed, but the extension VK_KHR_wayland_surface won't be available. |
| BUILD_WSI_DIRECTFB_SUPPORT | Linux | OFF | Build the loader with the DirectFB entry points enabled. Without this, the DirectFB headers should not be needed, but the extension VK_EXT_directfb_surface won't be available. |
| BUILD_WSI_SCREEN_QNX_SUPPORT | QNX | OFF | Build the loader with the QNX Screen entry points enabled. Without this the extension VK_QNX_screen_surface won't be available. |
| ENABLE_WIN10_ONECORE | Windows | OFF | Link the loader to the OneCore umbrella library, instead of the standard Win32 ones. |
| USE_GAS | Linux | ON | Controls whether to build assembly files with the GNU assembler, else fallback to C code. |
| USE_MASM | Windows | ON | Controls whether to build assembly files with MS assembler, else fallback to C code |
| BUILD_STATIC_LOADER | macOS | OFF | This allows the loader to be built as a static library on macOS. Not tested, use at your own risk. |
| LOADER_ENABLE_ADDRESS_SANITIZER | Linux & macOS | OFF | Enables Address Sanitizer in the loader and tests. |
| LOADER_ENABLE_THREAD_SANITIZER | Linux & macOS | OFF | Enables Thread Sanitizer in the loader and tests. |
| LOADER_USE_UNSAFE_FILE_SEARCH | All | OFF | Disables security policies that prevent unsecure locations from being used when running with elevated permissions. |
| LOADER_CODEGEN | All | OFF | Creates a helper CMake target to generate code. |
NOTE: LOADER_USE_UNSAFE_FILE_SEARCH should NOT be enabled except in very specific contexts (like isolated test environments)!
The following is a table of all string options currently supported by this repository:
| Option | Platform | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| FALLBACK_CONFIG_DIRS | Linux/MacOS | /etc/xdg | Configuration path(s) to use instead of XDG_CONFIG_DIRS if that environment variable is unavailable. The default setting is freedesktop compliant. |
| FALLBACK_DATA_DIRS | Linux/MacOS | /usr/local/share:/usr/share | Configuration path(s) to use instead of XDG_DATA_DIRS if that environment variable is unavailable. The default setting is freedesktop compliant. |
| BUILD_DLL_VERSIONINFO | Windows | "" (empty string) | Allows setting the Windows specific version information for the Loader DLL. Format is “major.minor.patch.build”. |
These variables should be set using the -D option when invoking CMake to generate the native platform files.
The general approach is to run CMake to generate the Visual Studio project files. Then either run CMake with the --build option to build from the command line or use the Visual Studio IDE to open the generated solution and work with the solution interactively.
Open a developer command prompt and enter:
cd Vulkan-Loader mkdir build cd build cmake -A x64 -D UPDATE_DEPS=ON .. cmake --build .
The above commands instruct CMake to find and use the default Visual Studio installation to generate a Visual Studio solution and projects for the x64 architecture. The second CMake command builds the Debug (default) configuration of the solution.
CMake to Create the Visual Studio Project FilesChange your current directory to the top of the cloned repository directory, create a build directory and generate the Visual Studio project files:
cd Vulkan-Loader mkdir build cd build cmake -D UPDATE_DEPS=ON -G "Visual Studio 16 2019" -A x64 ..
Note: The
..parameter tellscmakethe location of the top of the repository. If you place your build directory someplace else, you'll need to specify the location of the repository differently.
The -G option is used to select the generator
Supported Visual Studio generators:
Visual Studio 17 2022Visual Studio 16 2019The -A option is used to select either the “Win32”, “x64”, or "ARM64 architecture.
When generating the project files, the absolute path to a Vulkan-Headers install directory must be provided. This can be done automatically by the -D UPDATE_DEPS=ON option, by directly setting the VULKAN_HEADERS_INSTALL_DIR environment variable, or by setting the VULKAN_HEADERS_INSTALL_DIR CMake variable with the -D CMake option. In either case, the variable should point to the installation directory of a Vulkan-Headers repository built with the install target.
The above steps create a Windows solution file named Vulkan-Loader.sln in the build directory.
At this point, you can build the solution from the command line or open the generated solution with Visual Studio.
While still in the build directory:
cmake --build .
to build the Debug configuration (the default), or:
cmake --build . --config Release
to make a Release build.
Launch Visual Studio and open the “Vulkan-Loader.sln” solution file in the build folder. You may select “Debug” or “Release” from the Solution Configurations drop-down list. Start a build by selecting the Build->Build Solution menu item.
The CMake project also generates an “install” target that you can use to copy the primary build artifacts to a specific location using a “bin, include, lib” style directory structure. This may be useful for collecting the artifacts and providing them to another project that is dependent on them.
The default location is $CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR\install, but can be changed with the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX variable when first generating the project build files with CMake.
You can build the install target from the command line with:
cmake --build . --config Release --target install
or build the INSTALL target from the Visual Studio solution explorer.
This repository has been built and tested on the two most recent Ubuntu LTS versions, although earlier versions may work. It is be straightforward to adapt this repository to other Linux distributions.
CMake 3.17.2 is recommended.
sudo apt-get install git build-essential libx11-xcb-dev \
libxkbcommon-dev libwayland-dev libxrandr-dev
The general approach is to run CMake to generate make files. Then either run CMake with the --build option or make to build from the command line.
cd Vulkan-Loader mkdir build cd build cmake -D UPDATE_DEPS=ON .. make
See below for the details.
Change your current directory to the top of the cloned repository directory, create a build directory and generate the make files.
cd Vulkan-Loader
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug \
-D VULKAN_HEADERS_INSTALL_DIR=absolute_path_to_install_dir \
-D CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=install ..
Note: The
..parameter tellscmakethe location of the top of the repository. If you place yourbuilddirectory someplace else, you'll need to specify the location of the repository top differently.
Use -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE to specify a Debug or Release build.
When generating the project files, the absolute path to a Vulkan-Headers install directory must be provided. This can be done automatically by the -D UPDATE_DEPS=ON option, by directly setting the VULKAN_HEADERS_INSTALL_DIR environment variable, or by setting the VULKAN_HEADERS_INSTALL_DIR CMake variable with the -D CMake option. In either case, the variable should point to the installation directory of a Vulkan-Headers repository built with the install target.
Note: For Linux, the default value for
CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIXis/usr/local, which would be used if you do not specifyCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX. In this case, you may need to usesudoto install to system directories later when you runmake install.
You can just run make to begin the build.
To speed up the build on a multi-core machine, use the -j option for make to specify the number of cores to use for the build. For example:
make -j4
You can also use
cmake --build .
By default, the Vulkan Loader is built with support for the Vulkan-defined WSI display servers: Xcb, Xlib, and Wayland. It is recommended to build the repository components with support for these display servers to maximize their usability across Linux platforms. If it is necessary to build these modules without support for one of the display servers, the appropriate CMake option of the form BUILD_WSI_xxx_SUPPORT can be set to OFF.
Installing the files resulting from your build to the systems directories is optional since environment variables can usually be used instead to locate the binaries. There are also risks with interfering with binaries installed by packages. If you are certain that you would like to install your binaries to system directories, you can proceed with these instructions.
Assuming that you've built the code as described above and the current directory is still build, you can execute:
sudo make install
This command installs files to /usr/local if no CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX is specified when creating the build files with CMake:
/usr/local/lib: Vulkan loader library and package config filesYou may need to run ldconfig in order to refresh the system loader search cache on some Linux systems.
You can further customize the installation location by setting additional CMake variables to override their defaults. For example, if you would like to install to /tmp/build instead of /usr/local, on your CMake command line specify:
-D CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/tmp/build
Then run make install as before. The install step places the files in /tmp/build. This may be useful for collecting the artifacts and providing them to another project that is dependent on them.
Using the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX to customize the install location also modifies the loader search paths to include searching for layers in the specified install location. In this example, setting CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX to /tmp/build causes the loader to search /tmp/build/etc/vulkan/explicit_layer.d and /tmp/build/share/vulkan/explicit_layer.d for the layer JSON files. The loader also searches the “standard” system locations of /etc/vulkan/explicit_layer.d and /usr/share/vulkan/explicit_layer.d after searching the two locations under /tmp/build.
You can further customize the installation directories by using the CMake variables CMAKE_INSTALL_SYSCONFDIR to rename the etc directory and CMAKE_INSTALL_DATADIR to rename the share directory.
See the CMake documentation for more details on using these variables to further customize your installation.
Also see the LoaderInterfaceArchitecture.md document in the docs folder in this repository for more information about loader operation.
The loader supports building in 32-bit Linux environments. However, it is not nearly as straightforward as it is for Windows. Here are some notes for building this repo as 32-bit on a 64-bit Ubuntu “reference” platform:
If not already installed, install the following 32-bit development libraries:
gcc-multilib gcc-multilib g++-multilib libc6:i386 libc6-dev-i386 libgcc-s1:i386 libwayland-dev:i386 libxrandr-dev:i386
This list may vary depending on your distribution and which windowing systems you are building for.
Set up your environment for building 32-bit targets:
export CFLAGS=-m32 export CXXFLAGS=-m32 export LDFLAGS=-m32 export ASFLAGS=--32
Your PKG_CONFIG configuration may be different, depending on your distribution.
Finally, build the repository normally as explained above.
These notes are taken from the Github Actions workflow linux-32 which is run regularly as a part of CI.
Tested on OSX version 10.12
NOTE: To force the OSX version set the environment variable MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET when building.
Setup Homebrew and components
Ensure Homebrew is at the beginning of your PATH:
export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH
Add packages with the following (may need refinement)
brew install python python3 git
Clone the Vulkan-Loader repository:
git clone https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Loader.git
CMake 3.17.2 is recommended.
This generator is the default generator.
When generating the project files, the absolute path to a Vulkan-Headers install directory must be provided. This can be done automatically by the -D UPDATE_DEPS=ON option, by directly setting the VULKAN_HEADERS_INSTALL_DIR environment variable, or by setting the VULKAN_HEADERS_INSTALL_DIR CMake variable with the -D CMake option. In either case, the variable should point to the installation directory of a Vulkan-Headers repository built with the install target.
mkdir build cd build cmake -D UPDATE_DEPS=ON -D VULKAN_HEADERS_INSTALL_DIR=absolute_path_to_install_dir -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug .. make
To speed up the build on a multi-core machine, use the -j option for make to specify the number of cores to use for the build. For example:
make -j4
To create and open an Xcode project:
mkdir build-xcode cd build-xcode cmake -GXcode .. open Vulkan-Loader.xcodeproj
Within Xcode, you can select Debug or Release builds in the project's Build Settings.
Fuchsia uses the project's GN build system to integrate with the Fuchsia platform build.
The Vulkan Loader is a component of the Fuchsia SDK, so it must explicitly declare its exported symbols in the file vulkan.symbols.api; see SDK.
QNX is using its own build system. The proper build environment must be set under the QNX host development system (Linux, Win64, MacOS) by invoking the shell/batch script provided with QNX installation.
Then change working directory to the “build-qnx” in this project and type “make”. It will build the ICD loader for all CPU targets supported by QNX.
While this repo is capable of cross compilation, there are a handful of caveats.
Unknown function handling is only fully supported on select platforms due to the need for assembly in the implementation. Platforms not fully supported will have assembly disabled automatically, or can be manually disabled by setting USE_GAS or USE_MASM to OFF.
Platforms not listed will use a fallback C Code path that relies on tail-call optimization to work. No guarantees are made about the use of the fallback code paths.
When cross compiling, the use of Link Time Optimization (LTO) and unknown function handling is not supported. Either LTO needs to be turned off, or the assembly should be disabled.
To build tests, make sure that the BUILD_TESTS option is set to true. Using the command line, this looks like -D BUILD_TESTS=ON.
This project is configured to run with ctest, which makes it easy to run the tests. To run the tests, change the directory to that of the build direction, and execute ctest.
More details can be found in the README.md for the tests directory of this project.