C Specification

The type of descriptors in a descriptor set is specified by VkWriteDescriptorSet::descriptorType, which must be one of the values:

// Provided by VK_VERSION_1_0
typedef enum VkDescriptorType {
    VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_SAMPLER = 0,
    VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_COMBINED_IMAGE_SAMPLER = 1,
    VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_SAMPLED_IMAGE = 2,
    VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_STORAGE_IMAGE = 3,
    VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_UNIFORM_TEXEL_BUFFER = 4,
    VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_STORAGE_TEXEL_BUFFER = 5,
    VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_UNIFORM_BUFFER = 6,
    VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_STORAGE_BUFFER = 7,
    VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_UNIFORM_BUFFER_DYNAMIC = 8,
    VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_STORAGE_BUFFER_DYNAMIC = 9,
    VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_INPUT_ATTACHMENT = 10,
} VkDescriptorType;

Description

When a descriptor set is updated via elements of VkWriteDescriptorSet, members of pImageInfo, pBufferInfo and pTexelBufferView are only accessed by the implementation when they correspond to descriptor type being defined - otherwise they are ignored. The members accessed are as follows for each descriptor type:

  • For VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_SAMPLER, only the sampler member of each element of VkWriteDescriptorSet::pImageInfo is accessed.

  • For VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_SAMPLED_IMAGE, VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_STORAGE_IMAGE, or VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_INPUT_ATTACHMENT, only the imageView and imageLayout members of each element of VkWriteDescriptorSet::pImageInfo are accessed.

  • For VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_COMBINED_IMAGE_SAMPLER, all members of each element of VkWriteDescriptorSet::pImageInfo are accessed.

  • For VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_UNIFORM_BUFFER, VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_STORAGE_BUFFER, VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_UNIFORM_BUFFER_DYNAMIC, or VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_STORAGE_BUFFER_DYNAMIC, all members of each element of VkWriteDescriptorSet::pBufferInfo are accessed.

  • For VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_UNIFORM_TEXEL_BUFFER or VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_STORAGE_TEXEL_BUFFER, each element of VkWriteDescriptorSet::pTexelBufferView is accessed.

See Also

VK_VERSION_1_0, VkDescriptorPoolSize, VkDescriptorSetLayoutBinding, VkWriteDescriptorSet

Document Notes

For more information, see the Vulkan Specification

This page is extracted from the Vulkan Specification. Fixes and changes should be made to the Specification, not directly.

Copyright

Copyright 2014-2025 The Khronos Group Inc.

SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-4.0