nvidia-open: vkCreateDevice fails for D3D12-class Vulkan workloads (VKD3D-Proton) on hybrid laptop GPUs

[adiyat-abubakirov]

NVIDIA Open GPU Kernel Modules Version

595.58.03 (packaged nvidia-open from CachyOS repositories (no local patches))

Please confirm this issue does not happen with the proprietary driver (of the same version). This issue tracker is only for bugs specific to the open kernel driver.

• I confirm that this does not happen with the proprietary driver package.

Operating System and Version

CachyOS (Arch Linux–based)

Kernel Release

Linux 7.0.1-1-cachyos-bore (stable, non-rc)

Please confirm you are running a stable release kernel (e.g. not a -rc). We do not accept bug reports for unreleased kernels.

• I am running on a stable kernel release.

Hardware: GPU

GPU 0: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU (UUID: GPU-a1066083-4664-2849-c7ec-2128df9983ef) (iGPU: AMD Radeon 780M (Phoenix))

Describe the bug

On a hybrid graphics laptop, Vulkan device creation (vkCreateDevice) fails on the NVIDIA dGPU when using the NVIDIA open kernel driver, preventing D3D12 workloads via VKD3D-Proton from running.

This manifests as DX12 games (e.g. Cyberpunk 2077) failing to initialize on the NVIDIA GPU and falling back to the AMD iGPU, or failing outright when fallback is disabled.

Key characteristics:

• Occurs only with nvidia-open
• Does not occur with the proprietary NVIDIA driver (same version)
• Does not occur on the AMD iGPU (RADV)
• DX11 games via DXVK work correctly on the NVIDIA GPU
• Native Vulkan applications also work
  The failure happens during Vulkan device creation, before any D3D12 pipelines or shaders are created.

To Reproduce

1. Use a hybrid graphics laptop (AMD iGPU + NVIDIA dGPU)
2. Install nvidia-open driver (595.58.03)
3. Use Proton / GE-Proton / Proton-CachyOS (Optionally, I tested it with all of these versions & Proton-CachyOS + with VKD3D-Proton (latest upstream git))
4. Launch a DX12-only game, e.g. Cyberpunk 2077
5. Observe Vulkan device creation failure on NVIDIA GPU

Optional confirmation:

• Set VKD3D_NO_FALLBACK=1 to prevent fallback to iGPU
• Game fails immediately during initialization OR Game launches but only utilizes iGPU.

Bug Incidence

Always

nvidia-bug-report.log.gz

nvidia-bug-report.log.gz

More Info

Expected behavior:

• Vulkan device creation should succeed on the NVIDIA dGPU, allowing D3D12 workloads (VKD3D-Proton) to run, as it does with the proprietary driver.

Actual behavior:

• Vulkan device creation fails on the NVIDIA GPU when using nvidia-open
• VKD3D-Proton cannot initialize D3D12 on the dGPU

Additional notes:

• Tested with latest upstream VKD3D-Proton (not a packaged version)
• Failure occurs before D3D12 logic executes; this appears to be a Vulkan / driver-level limitation
• Issue seems specific to hybrid laptop GPUs; desktop NVIDIA GPUs are not known to exhibit this behavior

Here is my launch.log of launching Cyberpunk 2077 (gog, Proton-CachyOS (original, no custom patches)) through Heroic Game Launcher.

• The most important line is 7268.416:0148:014c:err:vkd3d-proton:vkd3d_create_vk_device: Failed to create Vulkan device, vr -3. It showcases the main problem that breaks the whole initialization of nvidia GPU for vkd3d for running windows games on linux (I highly suppose it happens only on laptops with hybrid GPUs).

Thank you for your work on the open GPU driver. I am happy to provide additional logs or perform further testing if needed.