Valheim bosses are not the only ones to be satisfied with the latest Viking game update, as the introduction of Vulkan support for Windows players means that your gaming PC it could see an increase in performance. Unlike its DirectX 12 counterpart, Vulkan was designed to have less processor overhead, helping the game run more efficiently.
In fact, the patch notes explain that using Vulkan “can fix some random crashes related to GPU drivers”, but that doesn’t mean it will work miracles, as Valheim is still firmly in Steam’s early access program.
Processors that are showing their age will benefit more from running the API, as it gives the component room to breathe, but that does not mean that you cannot increase the fps by running it with the best gaming CPU. On the GPU side of things, you don’t have to worry about compatibility, as Vulkan runs on most modern graphics cards and Valheim’s system requirements recommend at least one Nvidia GeForce GTX 950 or AMD Radeon HD 7970 to run on any manner.
To enable Vulkan and test it yourself, you just need to right-click on Valheim in your Steam library, access the properties and type -force-vulkan in the launch options field. If you have any problems with it, simply delete what is in the field and try to initialize again.
Some people on Reddit are seeing an impressive jump in performance, with Vulkan hitting more than 30 fps than DirectX 12. Others don’t see a noticeable difference worth mentioning or their settings don’t work well with the new API, causing crashes where they don’t there was none before.
So, should you play Valheim using Vulkan? It is worth a try, considering that it is so easy to set up and roll back if something goes wrong. At best, you will see the board’s counter rise higher and, at worst, you will need to put things the way they were before.