Instructions for building this repository on Linux, Windows, Android, 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 does not contain a Vulkan-capable driver. Before proceeding, it is strongly recommended that you obtain a Vulkan driver from your graphics hardware vendor and install it properly.
To create your local git repository:
git clone https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-ValidationLayers
Windows 7+ with the following software packages:
Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Update 4 Professional, VS2015 (any version), or VS2017 (any version).
pip module is installed (it should be by default)CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX and remember where you set this to.Vulkan Loader Library
The Vulkan SDK can be installed. In this case, cmake should be able to locate the loader repo through the VulkanSDK environment variable
The library can be built from the Vulkan-Loader repository. This can be done by setting ‘CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX’ and building ‘install’ target from within the Vulkan-Loader repo, noting the install location. In this case, the following option should be used on the cmake command line:
cmake -DVULKAN_LOADER_INSTALL_DIR=c:\absolute_path_to\Vulkan-Loader\install
This is an optional component, but required for building the validation layer tests. To install,
cd <the root directory of your copy of the Vulkan-ValidationLayers repository, "external" will be a subdirectory> git clone https://github.com/google/googletest.git external/googletest
The gtest libraries will be built as part of the main project cmake/build process
Vulkan-ValidationLayers -- the root of the cloned git repositorybuild directory, change into that directory, and run cmakeFor example, for VS2017 (generators for other versions are specified here):
cmake -DVULKAN_HEADERS_INSTALL_DIR=c:\absolute_path_to\Vulkan-Headers\install -DVULKAN_LOADER_INSTALL_DIR=c:\absolute_path_to\VULKAN_LOADER\install -DGLSLANG_INSTALL_DIR=c:\absolute_path_to\glslang\install -G "Visual Studio 15 2017 Win64" ..
VULKAN_LOADER_INSTALL_DIR, VULKAN_HEADERS_INSTALL_DIR, and GLSLANG_INSTALL_DIR each require absolute paths. This will create a Windows solution file named Vulkan-ValidationLayers.sln in the build directory.
Launch Visual Studio and open the “Vulkan-ValidationLayers.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.
After making any changes to the repository, you should perform some quick sanity tests, including the run_all_tests Powershell script. In addition, running sample applications such as the cube demo with validation enabled is advised.
To run the validation 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_layer_validation_tests: Test Vulkan validation layersThe above example used Visual Studio 2017, and specified its generator as “Visual Studio 15 2017 Win64”. The chosen generator should match your Visual Studio version. Appropriate Visual Studio generators include:
| Build Platform | 64-bit Generator | 32-bit Generator |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 | “Visual Studio 12 2013 Win64” | “Visual Studio 12 2013” |
| 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” |
This repository has been built and tested on the two most recent Ubuntu LTS versions. Currently, the oldest supported version is Ubuntu 14.04, meaning that the minimum supported compiler versions are GCC 4.8.2 and Clang 3.4, although earlier versions may work. It should be straightforward to adapt this repository to other Linux distributions.
Required Package List:
sudo apt-get install git cmake build-essential libx11-xcb-dev libxkbcommon-dev libmirclient-dev libwayland-dev libxrandr-dev
The VULKAN_LOADER_INSTALL_DIR environment variable should be used on the cmake command line to specify a vulkan loader library, like so:
cmake -DVULKAN_LOADER_INSTALL_DIR=c:\absolute_path_to\Vulkan-Loader\install ....
CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX and building the “install” target from within the Vulkan-Headers repository.This is an optional component, but required for building the validation layer tests. To install,
cd <the root directory of your copy of the Vulkan-ValidationLayers repository, "external" will be a subdirectory> git clone https://github.com/google/googletest.git external/googletest
The gtest libraries will be built as part of the main project cmake/build process
Example debug build
See Validation Layer Dependencies (below) for more information and other options:
In a Linux terminal, cd Vulkan-ValidationLayers -- the root of the cloned git repository
Create a build directory, change into that directory, and run cmake using absolute paths for the repo locations:
mkdir build cd build cmake -DVULKAN_HEADERS_INSTALL_DIR=/absolute_path_to/Vulkan-Headers/install -DVULKAN_LOADER_INSTALL_DIR=/absolute_path_to/Vulkan-Loader/install -DGLSLANG_INSTALL_DIR=/absolute_path_to_/glslang/location_of/install -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug ..
Run make -j8 to begin the build
If your build system supports ccache, you can enable that via CMake option -DUSE_CCACHE=On
export VK_LAYER_PATH=<path to your repository root>/build/layers
You can run the cube or vulkaninfo applications from the Vulkan-Tools repository to see which driver, loader and layers are being used.
By default, the Validation Layers are built with support for all 4 Vulkan-defined WSI display servers: Xcb, Xlib, Wayland, and Mir. 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. See the top-level CMakeLists.txt file for more info.
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 have 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/lib: Vulkan layers shared objects/usr/local/share/vulkan/explicit_layer.d: Layer JSON filesYou 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 -DDEST_DIR=/tmp/build
Then run make install as before. The install step places the files in /tmp/build.
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 Vulkan-Loader repository for more information about loader operation.
To uninstall the files from the system directories, you can execute:
sudo make uninstall
After making any changes to the repository, you should perform the included sanity tests by running the run_all_tests shell script.
To run the validation test script, in a terminal change to the build/tests directory and run:
VK_LAYER_PATH=../layers ./run_all_tests.sh
This script will run the following tests:
vk_layer_validation_tests: Test Vulkan validation layersFurther testing and sanity checking can be achieved by running the cube and vulkaninfo applications in the Vulkan-Tools repository.
Usage of the contents of this repository 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.
Install the required tools for Linux and Windows covered above, then add the following.
For each of the below, you may need to specify a different build-tools version, as Android Studio will roll it forward fairly regularly.
On Linux:
export ANDROID_SDK_HOME=$HOME/Android/sdk export ANDROID_NDK_HOME=$HOME/Android/sdk/ndk-bundle export PATH=$ANDROID_SDK_HOME:$PATH export PATH=$ANDROID_NDK_HOME:$PATH export PATH=$ANDROID_SDK_HOME/build-tools/23.0.3:$PATH
On Windows:
set ANDROID_SDK_HOME=%LOCALAPPDATA%\Android\sdk set ANDROID_NDK_HOME=%LOCALAPPDATA%\Android\sdk\ndk-bundle set PATH=%LOCALAPPDATA%\Android\sdk\ndk-bundle;%PATH%
On OSX:
export ANDROID_SDK_HOME=$HOME/Library/Android/sdk export ANDROID_NDK_HOME=$HOME/Library/Android/sdk/ndk-bundle export PATH=$ANDROID_NDK_PATH:$PATH export PATH=$ANDROID_SDK_HOME/build-tools/23.0.3:$PATH
Note: If jarsigner is missing from your platform, you can find it in the Android Studio install or in your Java installation. If you do not have Java, you can get it with something like the following:
sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jdk
Tested on OSX version 10.13.3
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:
brew install cmake python
There are two options for building the Android layers. Either using the SPIRV tools provided as part of the Android NDK, or using upstream sources. To build with SPIRV tools from the NDK, remove the build-android/third_party directory created by running update_external_sources_android.sh, (or avoid running update_external_sources_android.sh). Use the following script to build everything in the repository for Android, including validation layers, tests, demos, and APK packaging: This script does retrieve and use the upstream SPRIV tools.
cd build-android ./build_all.sh
Resulting validation layer binaries will be in build-android/libs. Test and demo APKs can be installed on production devices with:
./install_all.sh [-s <serial number>]
Note that there are no equivalent scripts on Windows yet, that work needs to be completed. The following per platform commands can be used for layer only builds:
Follow the setup steps for Linux or OSX above, then from your terminal:
cd build-android ./update_external_sources_android.sh --no-build ./android-generate.sh ndk-build -j4
Follow the setup steps for Windows above, then from Developer Command Prompt for VS2013:
cd build-android update_external_sources_android.bat android-generate.bat ndk-build
After making any changes to the repository you should perform some quick sanity tests, including the layer validation tests and the cube and smoke demos with validation enabled.
Use the following steps to build, install, and run the layer validation tests for Android:
cd build-android ./build_all.sh adb install -r bin/VulkanLayerValidationTests.apk adb shell am start com.example.VulkanLayerValidationTests/android.app.NativeActivity
Alternatively, you can use the test_APK script to install and run the layer validation tests:
test_APK.sh -s <serial number> -p <plaform name> -f <gtest_filter>
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 cmake python python3 git
Clone the Vulkan-ValidationLayers repository:
git clone https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-ValidationLayers.git
Also clone the following repos:
CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX and building the “install” target from within the Vulkan-Headers repository.This is an optional component, but required for building the validation layer tests. To install,
cd <the root directory of your copy of the Vulkan-ValidationLayers repository, "external" will be a subdirectory> git clone https://github.com/google/googletest.git external/googletest
The gtest libraries will be built as part of the main project cmake/build process
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, so all that is needed for a debug build is:
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DVULKAN_HEADERS_INSTALL_DIR=/absolute_path_to/Vulkan-Headers/install -DVULKAN_LOADER_INSTALL_DIR=/absolute_path_to/Vulkan-Loader/install -DGLSLANG_INSTALL_DIR=/absolute_path_to_/glslang/build/install -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 -DVULKAN_LOADER_INSTALL_DIR=/absolute_path_to/Vulkan-Loader/install -DGLSLANG_INSTALL_DIR=/absolute_path_to_/glslang/build/install -GXcode ..
open VULKAN.xcodeproj
Within Xcode, you can select Debug or Release builds in the Build Settings of the project. You can also select individual schemes for working with specific applications like cube.
export VK_LAYER_PATH=<path to your repository root>/build/layers
You can run the vulkaninfo applications from the Vulkan-Tools repository to see which driver, loader and layers are being used.
After making any changes to the repository, you should perform the included sanity tests by running the run_all_tests shell script.
These test require a manual path to an ICD to run properly on MacOS.
You can use:
Clone and build the MoltenVK repository.
You will have to direct the loader from Vulkan-Loader to the MoltenVK ICD:
export VK_ICD_FILENAMES=<path to MoltenVK repository>/Package/Latest/MoltenVK/macOS/MoltenVK_icd.json
Clone and build the Vulkan-Tools repository.
You will have to direct the loader from Vulkan-Loader to the Mock ICD:
export VK_ICD_FILENAMES=<path to Vulkan-Tools repository>/build/icd/VkICD_mock_icd.json
To run the validation test script, in a terminal change to the build/tests directory and run:
VK_LAYER_PATH=../layers ./run_all_tests.sh
This script will run the following tests:
vk_layer_validation_tests: Test Vulkan validation layersFurther testing and sanity checking can be achieved by running the cube and vulkaninfo applications in the Vulkan-Tools repository.
Note that MoltenVK is still adding Vulkan features and some tests may fail.
The Qt Creator IDE can open a root CMakeList.txt as a project directly, and it provides tools within Creator to configure and generate Vulkan SDK build files for one to many targets concurrently. Alternatively, when invoking CMake, use the -G "Codeblocks - Ninja" option to generate Ninja build files to be used as project files for QtCreator
Note that installing the WDK breaks the MSVC vcvarsall.bat build scripts provided by MSVC, requiring that the LIB, INCLUDE, and PATHenv variables be set to the WDK paths by some other means
The glslang repository is required to build and run Validation Layer components. Instructions to install an instance of the glslang repository follow here.
clone the repository:
git clone https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glslang.git
Execute the glslang python script to pull in the SPIRV-tools componenets:
python update_glslang_sources.py
Configure the glslang source tree with CMake and build it with your IDE of choice
After installing and building glslang, the location will be used to build the Vulkan-ValidationLayers repo:
Pass in the location of your glslang repository to cmake using absolute paths. From your build directory run: 1) on Windows
`cmake -DGLSLANG_INSTALL_DIR=c:/absolute_path_to/glslang/location_of/install -G "Visual Studio 15 Win64" ..`
2) or Linux
`cmake -DGLSLANG_INSTALL_DIR=/absolute_path_to/glslang/location_of/install -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug ..`