Installation¶

Prerequisites¶

All Platforms¶

Vulkan SDK (1.2 or later) - Download from LunarG
CMake (3.16 or later) - Download from cmake.org
C11 compatible compiler

Linux¶

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt update
sudo apt install vulkan-tools libvulkan-dev vulkan-validationlayers cmake build-essential

# Fedora
sudo dnf install vulkan-tools vulkan-loader-devel vulkan-validation-layers cmake gcc

# Arch
sudo pacman -S vulkan-tools vulkan-headers vulkan-validation-layers cmake base-devel

Verify installation:

vulkaninfo | head -20

Windows¶

Install Visual Studio 2019+ with "Desktop development with C++" workload
Install Vulkan SDK from LunarG
Ensure glslc is in your PATH (included with Vulkan SDK)

Verify installation:

vulkaninfo

macOS¶

Install Xcode Command Line Tools:
```
xcode-select --install
```
Install Vulkan SDK from LunarG (includes MoltenVK)

Set environment variables (add to ~/.zshrc or ~/.bash_profile):

export VULKAN_SDK=/path/to/vulkansdk/macOS
export PATH=$VULKAN_SDK/bin:$PATH
export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=$VULKAN_SDK/lib:$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH
export VK_ICD_FILENAMES=$VULKAN_SDK/share/vulkan/icd.d/MoltenVK_icd.json
export VK_LAYER_PATH=$VULKAN_SDK/share/vulkan/explicit_layer.d

Verify installation:

vulkaninfo | head -20

Building VKCompute¶

Clone the Repository¶

git clone https://github.com/Rounak-Paul/vkcompute.git
cd vkcompute

Linux/macOS¶

# Using the build script
chmod +x build.sh
./build.sh

# Or manually
mkdir build && cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
cmake --build . --parallel

Windows¶

# Using the build script
build.bat

# Or with Visual Studio
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -G "Visual Studio 17 2022" ..
cmake --build . --config Release

Verify Installation¶

Run the first chapter:

# Linux/macOS
./build/bin/ch01_hello_compute

# Windows
build\bin\Release\ch01_hello_compute.exe

You should see output like:

==============================================
  VKCompute - Chapter 01: Hello Vulkan Compute
==============================================

Vulkan instance created
Found 1 GPU(s)

  GPU 0: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080
    Type: Discrete GPU
    API Version: 1.3.277
    ...

Logical device created
Compute queue retrieved

=== SUCCESS ===
Vulkan is initialized and ready for compute work!

Troubleshooting¶

"No GPUs with Vulkan support found"¶

Ensure your GPU drivers are up to date
Check that Vulkan SDK is properly installed
On macOS, verify MoltenVK environment variables are set

"Failed to create Vulkan instance" (Error -9 on macOS)¶

This is VK_ERROR_INCOMPATIBLE_DRIVER. The portability extension is needed for MoltenVK. Our code handles this automatically, but ensure you have the latest Vulkan SDK.

"Validation layer not found"¶

Install validation layers:

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install vulkan-validationlayers

# Fedora
sudo dnf install vulkan-validation-layers

Shader Compilation Errors¶

Ensure glslc (from the Vulkan SDK) is in your PATH:

which glslc  # Should show path to glslc

Next Steps¶

With everything installed, head to Chapter 01 to write your first Vulkan program!