How to install the Vulkan driver for Retroarch?

coldspark29

The Vulkan beta code has been available for some time now. I was wondering if I could get this to show up in in the Retroarch video drivers. Following the guide you install the drivers in the user directory and I guess I would have to install them in root. I have tried to to put the

export VK_ICD_FILENAMES=/home/pi/local-install/share/vulkan/icd.d/broadcom_icd.armv7l.json

into the .bashrc, but I guess the Retroarch version in Retropie does not load the Vulkan driver anyway, does it? How can I get it to recognize it?

mitu

@coldspark29 Vulkan support is disabled explicitly on non-X11 platforms, since it needs X.org to run.

coldspark29

So this means the Vulkan driver for the Raspberry Pi 4 will never run on Retropie unless it is run in X?

mitu

@coldspark29 I don't understand the question - the Vulkan driver is not enabled right now, so it won't run on a stock RetroPie installation anyway.
If you wish to test it, you'll have to install the desktop environment (which will bring X.org as a dependency) and modify the install script to enable it in RetroArch, then you can run RetroArch from the desktop environment and enable the Vulkan video driver. Not a supported configuration, but you can certainly experiment with it if you want to.

coldspark29

Yes, I figured so much. I was asking if it will ever be available for environsments that are not running X, but I guess as soon as it is ready, people will make the effort to implement it to Retroarch.

coldspark29

@mitu So I want to try this out. Can you tell me how I would need to modify the install script? Do I have to install the Vulkan beta driver in the root directory or build Retroarch with Vulkan support?

The meson command is

meson --prefix /home/pi/local-install --libdir lib -Dplatforms=x11,drm -Dvulkan-drivers=broadcom -Ddri-drivers= -Dgallium-drivers=v3d,kmsro,vc4 -Dbuildtype=debug _build

My assumption is that I would need to change the prefix part to --prefix /. I am assuming that this could possibly break my system, because I don't know whether this is a fully functional mesa driver or just a part of it.

barbudreadmon

@coldspark29 said in How to install the Vulkan driver for Retroarch?:

Do I have to install the Vulkan beta driver in the root directory or build Retroarch with Vulkan support?

Yes, you'll need the driver and the software built with vulkan support, which includes both retroarch and its cores with vulkan support (so flycast and parallel ? ppsspp crash with vulkan, i'm pretty sure beetle-psx-hw can't run full speed on pi4 even with a 2.1Ghz overclock, and i don't remember any other core with a vulkan renderer)

mitu

@coldspark29 said in How to install the Vulkan driver for Retroarch?:

Can you tell me how I would need to modify the install script?

Which install script ? If you're referring to RetroArch, then try adding --enable-vulkan instead of --disable-vulkan in the build script to see if it works.