Table of Contents

Ubuntu - GPU - AMDVLK - Select the AMDVLK Vulkan Driver

NOTE: The actual driver files, can be located in various directories.

Although /usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/ and /etc/vulkan/icd.d/ are the most commonly used paths, the Vulkan loader looks in all the following locations: 

/etc/vulkan/icd.d
/usr/local/etc/vulkan/icd.d
/usr/local/share/vulkan/icd.d
/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d
$HOME/.local/share/vulkan/icd.d

Select the AMDVLK Vulkan Driver

export AMD_VULKAN_ICD=AMDVLK

NOTE: AMDVLK is the default, but may cause issues with Steam and other applications.

  • RADV is often much better, faster and more up to date!

Select the Mesa RADV Vulkan Driver

export AMD_VULKAN_ICD=RADV

Reenable the ICD based loading approach

Alternatively to the above. 

export DISABLE_LAYER_AMD_SWITCHABLE_GRAPHICS_1=1

NOTE: When DISABLE_LAYER_AMD_SWITCHABLE_GRAPHICS_1=1, you can choose your preferred Vulkan driver by setting the environment variable VK_ICD_FILENAMES.

  • For example, running Steam with the RADV driver is done by:
VK_ICD_FILENAMES=/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/radeon_icd.i686.json:/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/radeon_icd.x86_64.json steam
  • To avoid crashes with 32-bit games, it is possible to assign the 32-bit variant and the 64-bit variant to the environment variable.

References

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Vulkan#Selecting_vulkan_driver