Vulkan Guide

The Vulkan Guide is designed to help developers get up and going with the world of Vulkan. It is aimed to be a light read that leads to many other useful links depending on what a developer is looking for. All information is intended to help better fill the gaps about the many nuances of Vulkan.

Logistics Overview

• What is Vulkan?
• What you can do with Vulkan
• Vulkan Spec
• Platforms
• Checking for Support
• Versions
  • Vulkan Release Summary
• What is SPIR-V?
• Portability Initiative
• Vulkan CTS
• Vulkan Development Tools
• Vulkan Validation Overview
• Vulkan Decoder Ring (GL, GLES, DirectX, and Metal)

Using Vulkan

• Loader
• Layers
• Querying Properties, Extensions, Features, Limits, and Formats
  • Enabling Extensions
  • Enabling Features
• Queues and Queue Family
• WSI
• pNext and sType
• Synchronization
  • Porting to VK_KHR_synchronization2
• Memory Allocation Strategy
  • Sparse Resources
  • Protected Memory
• Pipeline Caching/Derivatives
• Threading
• Mapping Data to Shaders
  • Vertex Input Data Processing
• Robustness
  • VK_EXT_image_robustness, VK_EXT_robustness2
• Dynamic State
  • VK_EXT_extended_dynamic_state, VK_EXT_extended_dynamic_state2, VK_EXT_vertex_input_dynamic_state, VK_EXT_color_write_enable
• Subgroups
• Common Pitfalls

When and Why to use Extensions

These are supplemental references for the various Vulkan Extensions. Please consult the Vulkan Spec for further details on any extension

• Cleanup Extensions
  • VK_EXT_4444_formats, VK_KHR_bind_memory2, VK_KHR_create_renderpass2, VK_KHR_dedicated_allocation, VK_KHR_driver_properties, VK_KHR_get_memory_requirements2, VK_KHR_get_physical_device_properties2, VK_EXT_host_query_reset, VK_KHR_maintenance1, VK_KHR_maintenance2, VK_KHR_maintenance3, VK_KHR_separate_depth_stencil_layouts, VK_KHR_depth_stencil_resolve, VK_EXT_separate_stencil_usage, VK_EXT_sampler_filter_minmax, VK_KHR_sampler_mirror_clamp_to_edge, VK_EXT_ycbcr_2plane_444_formats
• Device Groups
  • VK_KHR_device_group, VK_KHR_device_group_creation
• External Memory and Sychronization
  • VK_KHR_external_fence, VK_KHR_external_memory, VK_KHR_external_semaphore
• Ray Tracing
  • VK_KHR_acceleration_structure, VK_KHR_ray_tracing_pipeline, VK_KHR_ray_query, VK_KHR_pipeline_library, VK_KHR_deferred_host_operations
• Shader Features
  • VK_KHR_8bit_storage, VK_KHR_16bit_storage, VK_KHR_relaxed_block_layout, VK_KHR_shader_atomic_int64, VK_EXT_scalar_block_layout, VK_KHR_shader_clock, VK_EXT_shader_demote_to_helper_invocation, VK_KHR_shader_draw_parameters, VK_KHR_shader_float16_int8, VK_KHR_shader_float_controls, VK_KHR_shader_non_semantic_info, VK_EXT_shader_stencil_export, VK_EXT_shader_subgroup_ballot, VK_KHR_shader_subgroup_extended_types, VK_EXT_shader_subgroup_vote, VK_KHR_shader_terminate_invocation, VK_EXT_shader_viewport_index_layer, VK_KHR_spirv_1_4, VK_KHR_storage_buffer_storage_class, VK_EXT_subgroup_size_control, VK_KHR_uniform_buffer_standard_layout, VK_KHR_variable_pointers, VK_KHR_vulkan_memory_model, VK_KHR_workgroup_memory_explicit_layout, VK_KHR_zero_initialize_workgroup_memory
• Translation Layer Extensions
  • VK_EXT_depth_clip_enable, VK_EXT_provoking_vertex, VK_EXT_transform_feedback
• VK_EXT_descriptor_indexing
• VK_EXT_inline_uniform_block
• VK_EXT_memory_priority
• VK_KHR_descriptor_update_template
• VK_KHR_draw_indirect_count
• VK_KHR_image_format_list
• VK_KHR_imageless_framebuffer
• VK_KHR_sampler_ycbcr_conversion
• VK_KHR_timeline_semaphore

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Contributing

License

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