Vulkan Fails to Detect NVIDIA GPU on WSL2 Ubuntu 24.04 - `dzn` Driver Files Missing (Tested on multiple systems)

Graphics / Linux Linux
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1

I’m trying to get Vulkan to detect my NVIDIA GPU in WSL2, but it keeps falling back to the software llvmpipe renderer. I’ve followed numerous guides and gone through extensive troubleshooting. This issue has occurred on multiple systems, and the core files for the D3D12-based Vulkan driver are still missing.

Here is my setup and what I’ve tried so far.

Hardware & Software:

  • Host OS: Windows 11
  • WSL Version: WSL2
  • NVIDIA GPUs:
    • NVIDIA Quadro P2200 ( PC)
    • NVIDIA RTX 3500 Ada (Laptop)
  • Windows NVIDIA Driver Version: 573.48
  • Linux Distributions:
    • Ubuntu 24.04 (fresh install)
    • Ubuntu 22.04 (previous troubleshooting)

What Works (and has been confirmed):

  • nvidia-smi successfully detects my card from within WSL on all systems.
  • glxinfo | grep "OpenGL renderer" shows D3D12 (NVIDIA Quadro P2200) and D3D12 (NVIDIA RTX 3500 Ada), confirming that OpenGL passthrough is working correctly.
  • My Windows NVIDIA drivers are up to date on all machines.
  • My WSL is fully up to date (wsl --update).

The Problem:
vulkaninfo --summary only shows a CPU-based device, even though OpenGL is working. Example output:


Devices:
========
GPU0:
        apiVersion         = 4206847 (1.3.255)
        driverVersion      = 1 (0x0001)
        vendorID           = 0x10005
        deviceID           = 0x0000
        deviceType         = PHYSICAL_DEVICE_TYPE_CPU
        deviceName         = llvmpipe (LLVM 15.0.7, 256 bits)
        driverID           = DRIVER_ID_MESA_LLVMPIPE
        driverName         = llvmpipe
        driverInfo         = Mesa 23.2.1-1ubuntu3.1~22.04.3 (LLVM 15.0.7)
        conformanceVersion = 1.3.1.1
        deviceUUID         = 6d657361-3233-2e32-2e31-2d3175627500
        driverUUID         = 6c6c766d-7069-7065-5555-494400000000

What I’ve Tried (and the key results):

  1. Standard installation: I installed vulkan-tools and mesa-vulkan-drivers on both Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04.
  2. Checking for dzn files: The core driver files for the D3D12 Vulkan implementation are missing on all tested systems.
    • ls -l /usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/ does not contain dzn_icd.x86_64.json.
    • find /usr -name "libvulkan_dzn.so" returns empty, indicating the driver library itself is not on the system.
  3. Clean slate: I performed a full re-installation of WSL and Ubuntu 24.04 from scratch on one of the machines by unregistering the distribution and using wsl --install -d Ubuntu-24.04. This did not solve the problem.
  4. PPA troubleshooting: On a previous Ubuntu 22.04 install, I tried adding the kisak-mesa PPA and reinstalling drivers, but the dzn files were still not provided.

My Question:
Given that the core dzn driver files are missing on a fresh Ubuntu 24.04 installation and across multiple PCs, what could be the underlying cause on the Windows/WSLg side? Is there any steps i am missing

2

same error！

3

same problem here ,update me if you find a solution

4

Guys,
I solved the problem by switching to another ppa source:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kisak/turtle
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

It works for me on both 20.04 and 22.04, maybe it would also work for 24.04.