There's a lot of ways to go deeply into what Vulkan is, but at the end of the day, the only information that really matters to most gamers is that this is a graphics API, which is a set of instructions to guide how your graphics card interacts with your computer's CPU to display game visuals. This particular API is designed to reduce CPU usage, work better with multiple CPU cores, and work across platform.
But like other graphics APIs, sometimes problems can arise and this article is designed to address some of the more common issues we see.
Vulkan Crash after Swapping off DirectX Rendering
Whenever an error caused by using Vulkan rendering over DirectX happens and the game will not launch without crashing, there is a quick fix to return to DirectX renderer.
- Exit the game if it is currently open.
- Open your game file folder, which by default is Program Files\Roberts Space Industries\StarCitizen\LIVE\
- Look for a file named user.cfg.
- If one does not exist, create one using a text editor.
- Open this file in any text editor (such as Notepad++ or similar).
- Add the following line at the bottom of the document: r.GraphicsRenderer = 0
- Save the file using the same name and in the same location.
- Attempt to launch Star Citizen again.
If you continue to have any crash issues with Vulkan, please report any additional problems on the Issue Council. Be sure to include crash logs in your reports!
Failed to Initialize Vulkan
Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) is currently flagging some versions of the Vulkan-1.dll file, which is a file that graphics drivers install automatically. This file doesn't always get updated along with the driver and it appears that EAC may be flagging some old versions of Vulkan as a result.
To correct this, make sure that your graphics drivers and Vulkan is up to date.
Easy Anti-Cheat Conflicts
This issue can sometimes appears as an EAC error which seems to be calling out a .dll file related to AMD or Nvidia files, which makes it seems like it isn't related to Vulkan at times. In this case there are some Windows security settings issues that are causing some problems for EAC.
Follow these steps to correct this:
- Search for Exploit protection in the Windows Start menu and click on it.
- Select the System settings option in the new window.
- Look for the settings with ASLR in the title and turn them all on.
- Reboot your PC.
Continued Problems
If the above has not helped resolve issues with the Vulkan graphics API, collect your computer and crash information files and then place a support ticket.