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)The uninstall target can be used to remove the above files from the install directory.
This 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.
To create your local git repository:
git clone https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Loader.git
This repository attempts to resolve some of its dependencies by using components found from the following places, in this order:
VULKAN_SDK environment variableDependencies 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. You must clone the headers repository and build its install target before building this repository. The Vulkan-Headers repository is required because it contains the Vulkan API definition files (registry) that are required to build the loader. You must also take note of the headers install directory and pass it on the CMake command line for building this repository, as described below.
The loader tests depend on the Google Test framework and do not build unless this framework is downloaded into the repository's external directory.
To obtain the framework, change your current directory to the top of your Vulkan-Loader repository and run:
git clone https://github.com/google/googletest.git external/googletest cd external/googletest git checkout tags/release-1.8.1
before configuring your build with CMake.
If you do not need the loader tests, there is no need to download this framework.
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 also 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.
Here is a usage example for this repository:
git clone git@github.com:KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Loader.git cd Vulkan-Loader mkdir build cd build ../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. In this case, they are built in the build directory.build directory is also being used to build this (Vulkan-ValidationLayers) repository. But there shouldn't be any conflicts inside the build directory between the dependent repositories and the build files for this repository.--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 (build in this case). 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. You can use this file with the cmake -C option to set these variables when you generate your build files with CMake. This lets you avoid entering several *_INSTALL_DIR variable settings on the CMake command line.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:
python3 scripts/generate_source.py PATH_TO_VULKAN_HEADERS_REGISTRY_DIR
A helper CMake target VulkanLoader_generated_source is also provided to simplify the invocation of scripts/generate_source.py from the build directory:
cmake --build . --target VulkanLoader_generated_source
When generating native platform build files through CMake, several options can be specified to customize the build. Some of the options are binary on/off options, while others take a string as input. The following is a table of all on/off options currently supported by this repository:
| Option | Platform | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| BUILD_LOADER | All | ON | Controls whether or not the loader is built. Setting this to OFF will allow building the tests against a loader that is installed to the system. |
| BUILD_TESTS | All | ??? | Controls whether or not the loader tests are built. The default is ON when the Google Test repository is cloned into the external directory. Otherwise, the default is OFF. |
| 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. |
| ENABLE_WIN10_ONECORE | Windows | OFF | Link the loader to the OneCore umbrella library, instead of the standard Win32 ones. |
| USE_CCACHE | Linux | OFF | Enable caching with the CCache program. |
| 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. |
The following is a table of all string options currently supported by this repository:
| Option | Platform | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| CMAKE_OSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET | MacOS | 10.12 | The minimum version of MacOS for loader deployment. |
| 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. |
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 -DVULKAN_HEADERS_INSTALL_DIR=absolute_path_to_install_dir .. 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.
Note that if you do not wish to use a developer command prompt, you may either run either vcvars64.bat or vcvars32.bat to set the required environment variables.
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 -A x64 -DVULKAN_HEADERS_INSTALL_DIR=absolute_path_to_install_dir ..
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 top differently.
The -A option is used to select either the “Win32” or “x64” architecture.
If a generator for a specific version of Visual Studio is required, you can specify it for Visual Studio 2015, for example, with:
64-bit: -G "Visual Studio 14 2015 Win64" 32-bit: -G "Visual Studio 14 2015"
See this list of other possible generators for Visual Studio.
When generating the project files, the absolute path to a Vulkan-Headers install directory must be provided. This can be done by 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_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.
The Vulkan-Loader repository contains some simple unit tests for the loader but no other test clients.
To run the loader test script, open a Powershell Console, change to the build\tests directory, and run:
For Release builds:
.\run_all_tests.ps1
For Debug builds:
.\run_all_tests.ps1 -Debug
This script will run the following tests:
vk_loader_validation_tests: Vulkan loader handle wrapping, allocation callback, and loader/layer interface testsYou can also change to either build\tests\Debug or build\tests\Release (depending on which one you built) and run the executable tests (*.exe) files from there.
The chosen generator should match one of the Visual Studio versions that you have installed. Generator strings that correspond to versions of Visual Studio include:
| Build Platform | 64-bit Generator | 32-bit Generator |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 | “Visual Studio 14 2015 Win64” | “Visual Studio 14 2015” |
| Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 | “Visual Studio 15 2017 Win64” | “Visual Studio 15 2017” |
| Microsoft Visual Studio 2019 | “Visual Studio 16 2019” | “Visual Studio 16 2019” |
Note that with Visual Studio 2019, the architecture will need to be specified with the -A flag for 64-bit builds.
Vulkan programs must be able to find and use the Vulkan loader (vulkan-1.dll) library as well as any other libraries the program requires. One convenient way to do this is to copy the required libraries into the same directory as the program. The projects in this solution copy the Vulkan loader library and the “googletest” libraries to the build\tests\Debug or the build\tests\Release directory, which is where the vk_loader_validation_test.exe executable is found, depending on what configuration you built. (The loader validation tests use the “googletest” testing framework.)
Other techniques include placing the library in a system folder (C:\Windows\System32) or in a directory that appears in the PATH environment variable.
See the LoaderAndLayerInterface document in the loader folder in this repository for more information on how the loader finds driver libraries and layer libraries. The document also describes both how ICDs and layers should be packaged, and how developers can point to ICDs and layers within their builds.
This repository has been built and tested on the two most recent Ubuntu LTS versions. Currently, the oldest supported version is Ubuntu 16.04, meaning that the minimum officially supported C++11 compiler version is GCC 5.4.0, although earlier versions may work. It should be straightforward to adapt this repository to other Linux distributions.
CMake 3.10.2 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 -DVULKAN_HEADERS_INSTALL_DIR=absolute_path_to_install_dir .. 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 -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug \
-DVULKAN_HEADERS_INSTALL_DIR=absolute_path_to_install_dir \
-DCMAKE_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 -DCMAKE_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 by 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 .
If your build system supports ccache, you can enable that via CMake option -DUSE_CCACHE=On
The vk_loader_validation_tests executable is linked with an RPATH setting to allow it to find the Vulkan loader library in the repository's build directory. This allows the test executable to run and find this Vulkan loader library without installing the loader library to a directory searched by the system loader or in the LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
If you want to test a Vulkan application that is not built within this repository with the loader you just built from this repository, you can direct the application to load it from your build directory:
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=<path to your repository root>/build/loader
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:
-DCMAKE_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 LoaderAndLayerInterface document in the loader folder in this repository for more information about loader operation.
Note that some executables in this repository (e.g., vk_loader_validation_tests) use the RPATH linker directive to load the Vulkan loader from the build directory, build in this example. This means that even after installing the loader to the system directories, these executables still use the loader from the build directory.
To uninstall the files from the system directories, you can execute:
sudo make uninstall
The Vulkan-Loader repository contains some simple unit tests for the loader but no other test clients.
To run the loader test script, change to the build/tests directory, and run:
./run_all_tests.sh
This script will run the following tests:
vk_loader_validation_tests: Vulkan loader handle wrapping, allocation callback, and loader/layer interface testsUsage of this repository's contents in 32-bit Linux environments is not officially supported. However, since this repository is supported on 32-bit Windows, these modules should generally work on 32-bit Linux.
Here are some notes for building 32-bit targets on a 64-bit Ubuntu “reference” platform:
If not already installed, install the following 32-bit development libraries:
gcc-multilib g++-multilib libx11-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 ASFLAGS=--32 export CFLAGS=-m32 export CXXFLAGS=-m32 export PKG_CONFIG_LIBDIR=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu
Again, your PKG_CONFIG configuration may be different, depending on your distribution.
Finally, rebuild the repository using cmake and make, as explained above.
Tested on OSX version 10.12.6
Setup Homebrew and components
Follow instructions on brew.sh to get Homebrew installed.
/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL \
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
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-ValidationLayers repository:
git clone https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-ValidationLayers.git
CMake 3.10.2 is recommended.
This repository uses CMake to generate build or project files that are then used to build the repository. The CMake generators explicitly supported in this repository are:
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 by 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 -DVULKAN_HEADERS_INSTALL_DIR=absolute_path_to_install_dir -DCMAKE_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.
If you want to test a Vulkan application with the loader you just built, you can direct the application to load it from your build directory:
export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=<path to your repository>/build/loader
The Vulkan-Loader repository contains some simple unit tests for the loader but no other test clients.
Before you run these tests, you will need to clone and build the MoltenVK repository.
You will also need to direct your new loader to the MoltenVK ICD:
export VK_ICD_FILENAMES=<path to MoltenVK repository>/Package/Latest/MoltenVK/macOS/MoltenVK_icd.json
To run the loader test script, change to the build/tests directory in your Vulkan-Loader repository, and run:
./vk_loader_validation_tests
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.