"Vulkan Initialization Failure" Error

[PetrichorAnt]

Hello! I just got No Man's Sky, but upon trying to start the game, I get this error Message:

Unable to initialize Vulkan (vkEnumerateInstanceExtensionProperties
failed.) You may not have a Vulkan driver installed, or an old driver on
your machine may be corrupted.

Please refer to https://hellogames.zendesk.com/for details.

I've gone to that website, downloaded a driver update for nvidia as recommended, and then it didn't work because of an outdated Java version so I got the latest Java and it still didn't work, then I found somebody who's game had stopped working since the whole Vulkan update and tried following their solution which didn't work, and then continued to rummage around for solutions for 4 more hours and couldn't find anything that worked. Some help would be greatly appreciated!

[Musashi]

@a burn victim
1: What is your exact error code ?
2: Could you ever play NMS before ?
3: Is that a Laptop ?
4: Which OS version ?
Type winver in Run to see it

[a burn victim]

EDIT: proper solution two comments down

I have solved the problem.

Download and install Vulkan SDK
Launch "Vulkan Configurator"
It will throw an error message at you, click OK
On the left hand side of the screen, in the section "Vulkan Layers Configuration", click Physical Device Selection and then click Edit on the right
in the window that just popped up, click Reset in the upper right hand corner
Then OK, OK, Save, etc

No Mans Sky should boot fine immediately, no restart required.



this is a Vulkan issue on motherboards/laptops with integrated graphics. Even if the Integrated Graphics is disabled, Vulkan sees the device and tries to use it.

My setup, which shows this can happen to anyone, lol

OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
CPU: Intel Core i5 @ 3.90GHz
RAM: 48.0GB
Motherboard: MSI Z590-A PRO
Graphics: 4089MB NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti (PNY)

[Zak]

All my motherboards I ever played NMS on have had integrated Intel graphics, which is always disabled and I never had this problem. So it can't be a problem on all "motherboards/laptops with integrated graphics". There must be some other factor in this.

But it's good to know, maybe it will help others in the future.

[LoboFH]

I have this problem in a desktop, Windows 11, GTX4080, driver 537.13

[a burn victim]

I have PROPERLY solved the problem.

The problem is that we forgot to install the CPU's drivers. It has integrated graphics and it needs to have its drivers installed before or "underneath" your actual graphics card's drivers, even if you choose to disable it

1. Go to your PC's BIOS and enable Integrated graphics
2. Boot Windows, open 'About your PC' (start menu, type 'about')
3. Copy the name of your processor (mine was 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-11600K )
4. Search for and download the proper driver suite from the website
5. Install Integrated CPU drivers
6. Reboot PC
7. Go to BIOS again and disable integrated graphics again
8. Boot PC and re-install Nvidia or AMD drivers

No Man's Sky will now boot without any warning or error

[a burn victim]

The problem is that we forgot to install the CPU's drivers. It has integrated graphics and it needs to have its drivers installed before or "underneath" your actual graphics card's drivers, even if you choose to disable it

1. Go to your PC's BIOS and enable Integrated graphics
2. Boot Windows, open 'About your PC' (start menu, type 'about')
3. Copy the name of your processor (mine was 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-11600K )
4. Search for and download the proper driver suite from the website
5. Install Integrated CPU drivers
6. Reboot PC
7. Go to BIOS again and disable integrated graphics again
8. Boot PC and re-install Nvidia or AMD drivers

No Man's Sky will now boot without any warning or error

[Sl_Neon]

its been months since i had this problem.. i tried everythings in this discussion and u know what worked for me after all this time??......

1. i deleted obs(dunno weather it affects or not but i did it)
2. i deleted TKGRAPHICSSETTINGS and TKGRAPHICSSETTINGVR in steam\steamapps\common\No Man's Sky\Binaries\SETTINGS

and im so angry it took me SOOO F***G LONG to figure this out AHHHHHHHHHHH

idk weather this will work for u or not so backup the settings just in case

Edit : i forgot to mention about 3

3. i reinstalled graphics drivers but.. i did a clean installation in custom settings ( doing this fixed another game i had vulkan problems with but not this.. try it just in case)

[Musashi]

Origineel geplaatst door Sl_Neon:

its been months since i had this problem.. i tried everythings in this discussion and u know what worked for me after all this time......

1. i deleted obs(dunno weather it affects or not but i did it)
2. i deleted TKGRAPHICSSETTINGS and TKGRAPHICSSETTINGVR in steam\steamapps\common\No Man's Sky\Binaries\SETTINGS

and im so angry it took me SOOO FKING LONG to figure this out AHHHHHHHHHHH

idk weather this will work for u or not so backup the settings just in case

An outdated version of OBS was almost certainly the reason for your problem

[Swankypants]

Origineel geplaatst door Sl_Neon:

its been months since i had this problem.. i tried everythings in this discussion and u know what worked for me after all this time......

1. i deleted obs(dunno weather it affects or not but i did it)
2. i deleted TKGRAPHICSSETTINGS and TKGRAPHICSSETTINGVR in steam\steamapps\common\No Man's Sky\Binaries\SETTINGS

and im so angry it took me SOOO FKING LONG to figure this out AHHHHHHHHHHH

idk weather this will work for u or not so backup the settings just in case

This stupid vulkan thing has been bugging me for literally years at this point. I've tried everything I could find apart from tinkering in the BIOS.
In exasperation, I deleted TKGRAPHICSSETTINGS and TKGRAPHICSSETTINGVR... and it fixed everything!

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN ABOUT 5 YEARS, I'M ABLE TO PLAY NMS!

[Saul Goodman]

This thread is really old. But Here in the big 2025 I had the exact same problem. Thing is, I tried it all. Literally watched all the tutorials. Did everything that everyone above said to do. and nothing worked. Spent HOURS on this,

Finally at the end. I decided to F around and find out. I just fully removed both of the "Vulkan-1.dll" and the "Vulkan-1,LICENSE" Folders from the game files under " C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\No Man's Sky\Binaries" and BOOM... The game launched, and so far is working perfectly fine. I will update this post if that changes. But yea... thank GOD!

[catch22atplay]

Removing the text file won't do anything. Deleting the Vulkan-1.dll will make it use the one in system32 folder. Well unless it makes it use the 2nd loader file vulkan-2.dll in the nms folder instead, i've no idea. I renamed both of the loader files in the game folder and game still ran fine a few hours ago. Ya odd we were both messing with these files. I don't have any issues i'm just testing stuff as usual.

But ya glad that worked for you dude. And btw did you read that vulkan license txt file. If you did it would send you to vulkans github where they're talking about this very issue and specifically for no man's sky. They added some fixes to later versions of the vulkan-1.dll file.

Not sure why nms is using such an old vulkan-1.dll file. I mean maybe if it's a special version and they use it for compatibility. But i'm using 1.4.304.0 released a last month. Game is using 1.0.1111.2222 and that's what over 5 years old. I'd think their modified vulkan-1.dll file isn't needed now with fixes in the newer versions. All gpu drivers come with Vulkan now. Newest driver will have latest Vulkan.

[obiwanceleri]

I bought my copy of No Man's Sky on GOG. I'm not sure if this helps but at some point GOG Galaxy decided it didn't want to start anymore so I started No Man's Sky manually. Your mileage may vary but my executable was at <drive letter>:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Galaxy\Games\No Man's Sky\Binaries\NMS.exe
The next day (and a reboot) Galaxy started working again (as though nothing ever happened), upon starting No Man's Sky I got the dreaded 'Vulcan initialization" error and I was offered to reset the config file. The game started fine again (and at that point I have to reset the config file every time I start the game through Galaxy).
I think the issue is this game searching for it's configuration files and it gets confused when you go through the launcher after that.
The conclusions is to start No Man's Sky by double-clicking on the executable (NMS.exe). You might not get all the perks added by the launcher but at least you'll get to play.

[Жаднозавр]

I have two video cards on my laptop, I have to turn off the built-in video card before starting the game, then turn it on and then the game starts and does not complain about this problem.

[Serious Wolf]

Same story here with "Unable to initialize Vulkan". The plot twist here is that the game previously ran fine on the same machine.

[Vargali]

the game also used to not need vulkan either... they should have made the GPU/API optional