Vulkan on MacOS?

jmccro · 10-21-2018, 02:20 AM #1

Hello,

I'm attempting to run dolphin on a Macbook Pro - I know, I know, the best answer would be to BootCamp another OS, but by all accounts I've found it looks like I should be able to use Vulkan. However, Vulkan backend simply isn't an option available in Dolphin's menu. Is there an additional step I need to take? Relatively new to fiddling with MacOS so I likely could've missed something.

**Jack Frost** · 10-21-2018, 02:31 AM #2

There is no native Vulkan support, outside of MoltenVK; and that one is still an ongoing effort in PR#7039. You can take it for a spin though using this build if you like.

**JosJuice** · 10-21-2018, 02:32 AM #3

There has been some work ongoing to make it possible to use Vulkan on macOS (through a compatibility layer such as MoltenVK), but this work hasn't been merged into the official builds of Dolphin yet.

jmccro · 10-21-2018, 02:35 AM #4

Ah, makes much more sense - I had been reading about MoltenVK but don't know how to set that up. I'll check the test build though!

jmccro · 10-21-2018, 02:37 AM #5

Alright, I get "failed to load vulkan library" when I try the PR#7039 build. Do I still have to use the MoltenVK library for it to work?

**JosJuice** · 10-21-2018, 02:40 AM #6

(10-21-2018, 02:37 AM)jmccro Wrote: Alright, I get "failed to load vulkan library" when I try the PR#7039 build. Do I still have to use the MoltenVK library for it to work?

Yes, you have to add MoltenVK manually for the time being. There are some comments about it on the pull request page. By the time it gets merged into official Dolphin, this shouldn't be necessary anymore.

jmccro · 10-21-2018, 02:54 AM #7

(10-21-2018, 02:40 AM)JosJuice Wrote: Yes, you have to add MoltenVK manually for the time being. There are some comments about it on the pull request page. By the time it gets merged into official Dolphin, this shouldn't be necessary anymore.

...okay, let's say not-so-hypothetically I'm still somewhat illiterate here. I can't get it to work, and I'm not entirely sure what they're saying to do. I have the Vulkan/MoltenVK SDK tarball, extracted it, and then....? Should I just hold out for the official build at this rate?

**Jack Frost** · 10-21-2018, 02:56 AM #8

You need a compiled MoltenVK Library for this to work (usually a *.dylib), not the SDK itself (usually a bunch of source files)

jmccro · 10-21-2018, 03:00 AM #9

(10-21-2018, 02:56 AM)Jack Frost Wrote: You need a compiled MoltenVK Library for this to work (usually a *.dylib), not the SDK itself (usually a bunch of source files)

The SDK includes libMoltenVK.dylib within it; will this suffice? perhaps i put it in the wrong spot.

**Jack Frost** · 10-21-2018, 03:35 AM **#10**

The initial text in the PR mentions where to put it, have you tried that?
(Not going to repeat it here, since it has changed in the past and might change later; so please refer to the PR for more information)