Lavapipe for macOS (arm64)

Pre-built lavapipe — Mesa's software Vulkan driver — for macOS Apple Silicon.

Lavapipe implements Vulkan in software using LLVM's JIT, with no GPU required. Useful for CI, testing, and headless rendering on machines without GPU access.

Download

Grab lavapipe-macos-arm64.tar.gz from the Releases page.

Usage

tar xzf lavapipe-macos-arm64.tar.gz
export VK_DRIVER_FILES=$(pwd)/lavapipe-macos-arm64/lvp_icd.aarch64.json
vulkaninfo --summary

You can move the extracted directory anywhere — the ICD manifest references the driver via a relative path.

What's included

• libvulkan_lvp.dylib — the lavapipe Vulkan driver
• lvp_icd.aarch64.json — ICD manifest

Runtime dependencies (llvm, zstd, spirv-tools) must be installed separately (e.g. via Homebrew).

Building from source

Requirements: macOS arm64 with Homebrew.

./build.sh

The script installs dependencies via Homebrew, clones Mesa, builds lavapipe, and produces lavapipe-macos-arm64.tar.gz.