README.md
1# Vulkan Ecosystem Components
2
3This project provides Khronos official ICD loader and validation layers for Vulkan developers on Windows and Linux.
4
5## Introduction
6
7Vulkan is an Explicit API, enabling direct control over how GPUs actually work. No (or very little) validation
8or error checking is done inside a Vulkan driver. Applications have full control and responsibility. Any errors in
9how Vulkan is used often result in a crash. This project provides standard validation layers that can be enabled
10to ease development by helping developers verify their applications correctly use the Vulkan API.
11
12Vulkan supports multiple GPUs and multiple global contexts (VkInstance). The ICD loader is necessary to
13support multiple GPUs and the VkInstance level Vulkan commands. Additionally, the loader manages inserting
14Vulkan layer libraries, including validation layers between the application and the ICD.
15
16The following components are available in this repository:
17- Vulkan header files
18- [*ICD Loader*](loader/)
19- [*Validation Layers*](layers/)
20- Demos and tests for the loader and validation layers
21
22## Contributing
23
24If you intend to contribute, the preferred work flow is for you to develop your contribution
25in a fork of this repo in your GitHub account and then submit a pull request.
26Please see the [CONTRIBUTING](CONTRIBUTING.md) file in this respository for more details
27
28## How to Build and Run
29
30[BUILD.md](BUILD.md)
31includes directions for building all the components, running the validation tests and running the demo applications.
32
33Information on how to enable the various Validation layers is in
34[layers/README.md](layers/README.md).
35
36Architecture and interface information for the loader is in
37[loader/LoaderAndLayerInterface.md](loader/LoaderAndLayerInterface.md).
38
39#### **NOTE**: Update Nvidia Drivers
40- A recent glslang change exposed a bug in the texel fetch behavior on Nvidia devices under certain situations.
41- Previously, we reverted the glslang change which exposed it.
42- Nvidia has since resolved the issue, and we are now removing the workaround.
43- Driver installs with the fix are available on their download page, just look for:
44 - Linux Drivers starting with version 367.35
45 - Windows Drivers starting at version 372.54
46
47## License
48This work is released as open source under a Apache-style license from Khronos including a Khronos copyright.
49
50See COPYRIGHT.txt for a full list of licenses used in this repository.
51
52## Acknowledgements
53While this project has been developed primarily by LunarG, Inc; there are many other
54companies and individuals making this possible: Valve Corporation, funding
55project development; Google providing significant contributions to the validation layers;
56Khronos providing oversight and hosting of the project.
57
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59