C Specification

To query the basic capabilities of a surface, needed in order to create a swapchain, call:

// Provided by VK_KHR_surface
VkResult vkGetPhysicalDeviceSurfaceCapabilitiesKHR(
    VkPhysicalDevice                            physicalDevice,
    VkSurfaceKHR                                surface,
    VkSurfaceCapabilitiesKHR*                   pSurfaceCapabilities);

Parameters

  • physicalDevice is the physical device that will be associated with the swapchain to be created, as described for vkCreateSwapchainKHR.

  • surface is the surface that will be associated with the swapchain.

  • pSurfaceCapabilities is a pointer to a VkSurfaceCapabilitiesKHR structure in which the capabilities are returned.

Description

If VkPhysicalDeviceVulkanSC10Properties::deviceNoDynamicHostAllocations is VK_TRUE, vkGetPhysicalDeviceSurfaceCapabilitiesKHR must not return VK_ERROR_OUT_OF_HOST_MEMORY.

Valid Usage

  • VUID-vkGetPhysicalDeviceSurfaceCapabilitiesKHR-surface-06211
    surface must be supported by physicalDevice, as reported by vkGetPhysicalDeviceSurfaceSupportKHR or an equivalent platform-specific mechanism

Valid Usage (Implicit)

  • VUID-vkGetPhysicalDeviceSurfaceCapabilitiesKHR-physicalDevice-parameter
    physicalDevice must be a valid VkPhysicalDevice handle

  • VUID-vkGetPhysicalDeviceSurfaceCapabilitiesKHR-surface-parameter
    surface must be a valid VkSurfaceKHR handle

  • VUID-vkGetPhysicalDeviceSurfaceCapabilitiesKHR-pSurfaceCapabilities-parameter
    pSurfaceCapabilities must be a valid pointer to a VkSurfaceCapabilitiesKHR structure

  • VUID-vkGetPhysicalDeviceSurfaceCapabilitiesKHR-commonparent
    Both of physicalDevice, and surface must have been created, allocated, or retrieved from the same VkInstance

Return Codes
On success, this command returns

  • VK_SUCCESS

On failure, this command returns

  • VK_ERROR_OUT_OF_HOST_MEMORY

  • VK_ERROR_OUT_OF_DEVICE_MEMORY

  • VK_ERROR_SURFACE_LOST_KHR

See Also

VK_KHR_surface, VkPhysicalDevice, VkSurfaceCapabilitiesKHR, VkSurfaceKHR

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