If you start Valheim from the Steam client, you will now be given the choice between “Play Valheim” and “Play Valheim using Vulkan”.
But what is Vulkan anyway and what is all of this supposed to bring? And how can Vulkan be activated permanently in case of doubt so that you don’t always have to start the game from the client?
What is Vulkan?
Vulkan is an open source programming interface, also called API (abbreviation of application programming interface), which was derived from AMD’s Mantle API. Vulkan aims to reduce the so-called overhead of the graphics driver, enable more direct access to the hardware and increase performance.
What is an overhead?
Overhead means Administrative data. So you can perhaps get an idea of what is meant by this: The overhead contains additional information, in this case additional arithmetic operations – or layers in the graphics driver, i.e. resources that do not benefit the actual game performance of the graphics card, but rather in the “Administrative apparatus” get lost.
So far, Valheim has only had Microsoft’s DirectX 11 API available. However, compared to Vulkan, DX11 is significantly older. Conversely, Vulkan contains newer features and a more extensive set of commands.
According to the Valheim developers, this should prevent some random GPU-based crashes. As mentioned above, Vulkan can also provide better performance.
How can Vulkan be activated permanently?
If you are convinced of Vulkan and don’t always want to make the selection from the Steam client, you can also activate the API permanently. The only requirement is that you have at least game version 0.146.8 installed. This is how you do it:
- Select Valheim in the Steam client and open the options menu (cogwheel)
- Under characteristics you now choose the menu item General
- You can find them at the bottom Start option. Give here -force-volcano on.
- Close the menu (you can and do not need to save)