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 contains the source code necessary to build the following components:
The install target installs the following files under the directory indicated by install_dir:
/bin : The vulkaninfo, vkcube and vkcubepp executables/lib : The mock ICD library and JSON (Windows) (If INSTALL_ICD=ON)/share/vulkan/icd.d : mock ICD JSON (Linux/MacOS) (If INSTALL_ICD=ON)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-Tools.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 mock ICD. 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.
Note that this dependency can be ignored if not building the mock ICD (CMake option: -DBUILD_ICD=OFF).
This repository has a required dependency on the glslangValidator (shader compiler) for compiling the shader programs for the vkcube demos.
The CMake code in this repository downloads release binaries of glslang if a build glslang repository is not provided. The glslangValidator is obtained from this set of release binaries.
If you don't wish the CMake code to download these binaries, then you must clone the glslang repository and build its install target. Follow the build instructions in the glslang README.md file. Ensure that the update_glslang_sources.py script has been run as part of building glslang. You must also take note of the glslang install directory and pass it on the CMake command line for building this repository, as described below.
Note that this dependency can be ignored if not building the vkcube demo (CMake option: -DBUILD_CUBE=OFF).
A common convention is to place the build directory in the top directory of the repository with a name of build and place the install directory as a child of the build directory with the name install. The remainder of these instructions follow this convention, although you can use any name for these directories and place them 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 script uses information stored in the scripts/known_good.json file to check out dependent repository revisions that are known to be compatible with the revision of this repository that you currently have checked out. As such, this script is useful as a quick-start tool for common use cases and default configurations.
For all platforms, start with:
git clone git@github.com:KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Tools.git cd Vulkan-Tools mkdir build cd build
For 64-bit Linux and MacOS, continue with:
../scripts/update_deps.py cmake -C helper.cmake .. cmake --build .
For 64-bit Windows, continue with:
..\scripts\update_deps.py --arch x64 cmake -A x64 -C helper.cmake .. cmake --build .
For 32-bit Windows, continue with:
..\scripts\update_deps.py --arch Win32 cmake -A Win32 -C helper.cmake .. cmake --build .
Please see the more detailed build information later in this file if you have specific requirements for configuring and building these components.
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-Tools) 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 icd/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 VulkanTools_generated_source is also provided to simplify the invocation of scripts/generate_source.py from the build directory:
cmake --build . --target VulkanTools_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_CUBE | All | ON | Controls whether or not the vkcube demo is built. |
| BUILD_VULKANINFO | All | ON | Controls whether or not the vulkaninfo utility is built. |
| BUILD_ICD | All | ON | Controls whether or not the mock ICD is built. |
| INSTALL_ICD | All | OFF | Controls whether or not the mock ICD is installed as part of the install target. |
| BUILD_WSI_XCB_SUPPORT | Linux | ON | Build the components with XCB support. |
| BUILD_WSI_XLIB_SUPPORT | Linux | ON | Build the components with Xlib support. |
| BUILD_WSI_WAYLAND_SUPPORT | Linux | ON | Build the components with Wayland support. |
| USE_CCACHE | Linux | OFF | Enable caching with the CCache program. |
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. |
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.
cd Vulkan-Tools 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.
See below for the details.
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-Tools 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-Tools.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-Tools.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.
If you do need to build and use your own loader, build the Vulkan-Loader repository with the install target and modify your CMake invocation to add the location of the loader's install directory:
cmake -A x64 -DVULKAN_HEADERS_INSTALL_DIR=absolute_path_to_install_dir \
-DVULKAN_LOADER_INSTALL_DIR=absolute_path_to_install_dir ..
If you do need to build and use your own glslang, build the glslang repository with the install target and modify your CMake invocation to add the location of the glslang's install directory:
cmake -A x64 -DVULKAN_HEADERS_INSTALL_DIR=absolute_path_to_install_dir \
-DGLSLANG_INSTALL_DIR=absolute_path_to_install_dir ..
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 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 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 cmake 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-Tools 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-Tools
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
By default, the repository components are 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.
Note vulkaninfo currently only supports Xcb and Xlib WSI display servers. See the CMakeLists.txt file in Vulkan-Tools/vulkaninfo for more info.
You can select which WSI subsystem is used to execute the vkcube applications using a CMake option called DEMOS_WSI_SELECTION. Supported options are XCB (default), XLIB, and WAYLAND. Note that you must build using the corresponding BUILD_WSI_*_SUPPORT enabled at the base repository level. For instance, creating a build that will use Xlib when running the vkcube demos, your CMake command line might look like:
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug -DDEMOS_WSI_SELECTION=XLIB ..
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.
You 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.
Note: The Mock ICD is not installed by default since it is a “null” driver that does not render anything and is used for testing purposes. Installing it to system directories may cause some applications to discover and use this driver instead of other full drivers installed on the system. If you really want to install this null driver, use:
-DINSTALL_ICD=ON
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 of the Vulkan-Loader repository for more information about loader and layer 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 some quick sanity tests, such as running the vkcube demo with validation enabled.
To run the vkcube application with validation, in a terminal change to the build/cube directory and run:
VK_LAYER_PATH=../path/to/validation/layers ./vkcube --validate
If you have an SDK installed and have run the setup script to set the VULKAN_SDK environment variable, it may be unnecessary to specify a VK_LAYER_PATH.
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 python
There are two options for building the Android tools. 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
Test and application 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 vkcube demo 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 <platform name> -f <gtest_filter>
TODO: This must be reworked to pull in layers from the ValidationLayers repo
Use the following steps to build, install, and run vkcube for Android:
cd build-android ./build_all.sh adb install -r ../demos/android/cube/bin/vkcube.apk adb shell am start com.example.Cube/android.app.NativeActivity
To build, install, and run Cube with validation layers, first build layers using steps above, then run:
cd build-android ./build_all.sh adb install -r ../demos/android/cube-with-layers/bin/cube-with-layers.apk
adb shell am start com.example.CubeWithLayers/android.app.NativeActivity
adb shell am start -a android.intent.action.MAIN -c android-intent.category.LAUNCH -n com.example.CubeWithLayers/android.app.NativeActivity --es args "--validate"
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-Tools repository as defined above in the Download the Repository section.
MoltenVK Library
Vulkan Loader Library
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 -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug \
-DVULKAN_LOADER_INSTALL_DIR=/absolute_path_to/Vulkan-Loader_install_dir \
-DMOLTENVK_REPO_ROOT=/absolute_path_to/MoltenVK \
-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=install ..
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
You can now run the demo applications from the command line:
open cube/vkcube.app open cube/vkcubepp.app open vulkaninfo/vulkaninfo.app
Or you can locate them from Finder and launch them from there.
The applications you just built are “bundled applications”, but the executables are using the RPATH mechanism to locate runtime dependencies that are still in your build tree.
To see this, run this command from your build directory:
otool -l cube/cube.app/Contents/MacOS/vkcube
and note that the vkcube executable contains loader commands:
LC_LOAD_DYLIB to load libvulkan.1.dylib via an @rpathLC_RPATH that contains an absolute path to the build location of the Vulkan loaderThis makes the bundled application “non-transportable”, meaning that it won't run unless the Vulkan loader is on that specific absolute path. This is useful for debugging the loader or other components built in this repository, but not if you want to move the application to another machine or remove your build tree.
To address this problem, run:
make install
This step copies the bundled applications to the location specified by CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX and “cleans up” the RPATH to remove any external references and performs other bundle fix-ups. After running make install, run the otool command again from the build/install directory and note:
LC_LOAD_DYLIB is now @executable_path/../MacOS/libvulkan.1.dylibLC_RPATH is no longer presentThe “bundle fix-up” operation also puts a copy of the Vulkan loader into the bundle, making the bundle completely self-contained and self-referencing.
There is also a non-bundled version of the vulkaninfo application that you can run from the command line:
vulkaninfo/vulkaninfo
If you run this from the build directory, vulkaninfo‘s RPATH is already set to point to the Vulkan loader in the build tree, so it has no trouble finding it. But the loader will not find the MoltenVK driver and you’ll see a message about an incompatible driver. To remedy this:
VK_ICD_FILENAMES=<path-to>/MoltenVK/Package/Latest/MoltenVK/macOS/MoltenVK_icd.json vulkaninfo/vulkaninfo
If you run vulkaninfo from the install directory, the RPATH in the vulkaninfo application got removed and the OS needs extra help to locate the Vulkan loader:
DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=<path-to>/Vulkan-Loader/loader VK_ICD_FILENAMES=<path-to>/MoltenVK/Package/Latest/MoltenVK/macOS/MoltenVK_icd.json vulkaninfo/vulkaninfo
To create and open an Xcode project:
mkdir build-xcode
cd build-xcode
cmake -DVULKAN_LOADER_INSTALL_DIR=/absolute_path_to/Vulkan-Loader_install_dir -DMOLTENVK_REPO_ROOT=/absolute_path_to/MoltenVK -GXcode ..
open VULKAN.xcodeproj
Within Xcode, you can select Debug or Release builds in the project's Build Settings. You can also select individual schemes for working with specific applications like vkcube.