Vulkan SDK Redistributables

Question

I post the following question at LunarG, as Issue #565, about Vulkan SDK redistributable parts for ready to go applications developed with Vulkan. I'd like to share it with Stack Overflow developers.

Let's say I have Vulkan application demo and wish to send it to potential clients, in order to evaluate it. If I'd develop it using SDK, what is the correct way to deploy it :

a) include the compatible SDK installer in a multi-install process ?

b) include some SDK's dlls and companion files ? Which ones ?

It also raises another question: Can I re-distribute SDK files ?

Answer 1

Karl Schultz, from LunarG, replied with the following:

On Windows, many IHVs include the Vulkan loader DLL in their install packages, placing it in system32/vulkan-1.dll. So, in many cases, your app might just work fine as long as the user has installed drivers with Vulkan support.

You might also consider shipping only the RunTimeInstaller, which is found in the SDK. This would let the user install the run time (loader) as part of your application install. The RTI includes version checking so that it doesn't clobber a newer version installed by IHV drivers, or vice-versa. In short, this is probably the best way to go. It would be better to include the RTI as part of the "multi-install process" rather than include the entire SDK.

If your application needs layers or some other specific item from the SDK, then you'd have to include those explicitly somehow.

Please check the licensing-related files within the SDK concerning redistribution.