[4.7.1] Vulkan wont initialize

[Xtyfe]

Vulkan will not initialize when starting gzdoom up.

I have attached a screenshot to show what I get in the console. If there is any more info I can provide, please let me know.

[Rachael]

Make sure you are using the latest up-to-date drivers from NVidia.

[Xtyfe]

I just updated actually. GZDoom is the only vulkan-based game that does this.

[dpJudas]

We need confirmation with other people with this driver that this is a general issue. The reason I'm saying this is basically this is the very first step where the code asks vulkan for its list of devices and then none are returned. It is therefore more likely to be an issue with the driver and/or combination of the driver and those various overlay programs people run that tend to be buggy in one way or another.

[dpJudas]

Just an update on this. Tried installing this driver on my computer and it works just fine.

My guess is you have some kind of third party software installed that puts itself in between GZDoom and the graphics card. They are often used by communication software (Discord, etc), store software (Steam, etc), video recording software (Discord, etc), or graphical rape software (Reshade, etc). I guess you could also try reinstall the driver on your computer to see if that helps. In any case, it doesn't seem to be triggered by just the driver.

[Xtyfe]

I did some digging and it seems like this is related to the fact that I am using a laptop with switchable graphics. What is even weirder is the fact that I was able to get Vulkan to work with GZdoom so long as I started a game straight from clicking on the exe itself. Why is that weird? Because I can't get Vulkan to work if I use a launcher like ZDL. I have no idea why though, but on the bright side, it seems to work in general.

I wonder though if GZDoom has any proper handling for switchable graphics. It seems to be quite common these days.

[Rachael]

It did, but then Microsoft decided "we're going to handle switchable graphics ourselves" and that broke GZDoom's internal handling of it. It has not been repaired since.

[Xtyfe]

Honestly, if there is anything I have learned from this, it's that microsoft did a shit job of it.

[Rachael]

Yes - it doesn't even work at all, for my laptop.

Anyway you can try this - you can try starting up with "gzdoom +vk_device <#>" starting at 1 and going up - 0 is default. You likely only have 2 devices, so just try 1 and 2.

[Xtyfe]

Ok, I found the problem. It was neither GZDoom nor my laptop hardware. I was using a desktop dock to launch programs and apparently, it launches dock items in a weird way such as ignoring Vulkan.