Deprecation state
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Promoted to Vulkan 1.2
Contact
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Jeff Bolz jeffbolznv
Other Extension Metadata
- Last Modified Date
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2017-10-02
- Interactions and External Dependencies
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Promoted to Vulkan 1.2 Core
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This extension requires
SPV_EXT_descriptor_indexing
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This extension provides API support for
GL_EXT_nonuniform_qualifier
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- Contributors
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Jeff Bolz, NVIDIA
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Daniel Rakos, AMD
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Slawomir Grajewski, Intel
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Tobias Hector, Imagination Technologies
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Description
This extension adds several small features which together enable
applications to create large descriptor sets containing substantially all of
their resources, and selecting amongst those resources with dynamic
(non-uniform) indexes in the shader.
There are feature enables and SPIR-V capabilities for non-uniform descriptor
indexing in the shader, and non-uniform indexing in the shader requires use
of a new NonUniformEXT
decoration defined in the
SPV_EXT_descriptor_indexing
SPIR-V extension.
There are descriptor set layout binding creation flags enabling several
features:
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Descriptors can be updated after they are bound to a command buffer, such that the execution of the command buffer reflects the most recent update to the descriptors.
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Descriptors that are not used by any pending command buffers can be updated, which enables writing new descriptors for frame N+1 while frame N is executing.
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Relax the requirement that all descriptors in a binding that is “statically used” must be valid, such that descriptors that are not accessed by a submission need not be valid and can be updated while that submission is executing.
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The final binding in a descriptor set layout can have a variable size (and unsized arrays of resources are allowed in the
GL_EXT_nonuniform_qualifier
andSPV_EXT_descriptor_indexing
extensions).
Note that it is valid for multiple descriptor arrays in a shader to use the same set and binding number, as long as they are all compatible with the descriptor type in the pipeline layout. This means a single array binding in the descriptor set can serve multiple texture dimensionalities, or an array of buffer descriptors can be used with multiple different block layouts.
There are new descriptor set layout and descriptor pool creation flags that
are required to opt in to the update-after-bind functionality, and there are
separate maxPerStage
* and maxDescriptorSet
* limits that apply to
these descriptor set layouts which may be much higher than the pre-existing
limits.
The old limits only count descriptors in non-updateAfterBind descriptor set
layouts, and the new limits count descriptors in all descriptor set layouts
in the pipeline layout.
New Structures
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Extending VkDescriptorSetAllocateInfo:
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Extending VkDescriptorSetLayoutCreateInfo:
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Extending VkDescriptorSetLayoutSupport:
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Extending VkPhysicalDeviceFeatures2, VkDeviceCreateInfo:
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Extending VkPhysicalDeviceProperties2:
New Enum Constants
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VK_EXT_DESCRIPTOR_INDEXING_EXTENSION_NAME
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VK_EXT_DESCRIPTOR_INDEXING_SPEC_VERSION
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Extending VkDescriptorBindingFlagBits:
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VK_DESCRIPTOR_BINDING_PARTIALLY_BOUND_BIT_EXT
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VK_DESCRIPTOR_BINDING_UPDATE_AFTER_BIND_BIT_EXT
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VK_DESCRIPTOR_BINDING_UPDATE_UNUSED_WHILE_PENDING_BIT_EXT
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VK_DESCRIPTOR_BINDING_VARIABLE_DESCRIPTOR_COUNT_BIT_EXT
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Extending VkDescriptorPoolCreateFlagBits:
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VK_DESCRIPTOR_POOL_CREATE_UPDATE_AFTER_BIND_BIT_EXT
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Extending VkDescriptorSetLayoutCreateFlagBits:
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VK_DESCRIPTOR_SET_LAYOUT_CREATE_UPDATE_AFTER_BIND_POOL_BIT_EXT
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Extending VkResult:
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VK_ERROR_FRAGMENTATION_EXT
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Extending VkStructureType:
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VK_STRUCTURE_TYPE_DESCRIPTOR_SET_LAYOUT_BINDING_FLAGS_CREATE_INFO_EXT
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VK_STRUCTURE_TYPE_DESCRIPTOR_SET_VARIABLE_DESCRIPTOR_COUNT_ALLOCATE_INFO_EXT
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VK_STRUCTURE_TYPE_DESCRIPTOR_SET_VARIABLE_DESCRIPTOR_COUNT_LAYOUT_SUPPORT_EXT
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VK_STRUCTURE_TYPE_PHYSICAL_DEVICE_DESCRIPTOR_INDEXING_FEATURES_EXT
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VK_STRUCTURE_TYPE_PHYSICAL_DEVICE_DESCRIPTOR_INDEXING_PROPERTIES_EXT
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Promotion to Vulkan 1.2
Functionality in this extension is included in core Vulkan 1.2, with the EXT
suffix omitted.
However, if Vulkan 1.2 is supported and this extension is not, the
descriptorIndexing
capability is optional.
The original type, enum and command names are still available as aliases of
the core functionality.
Version History
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Revision 1, 2017-07-26 (Jeff Bolz)
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Internal revisions
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Revision 2, 2017-10-02 (Jeff Bolz)
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???
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See Also
VkDescriptorBindingFlagBitsEXT, VkDescriptorBindingFlagsEXT, VkDescriptorSetLayoutBindingFlagsCreateInfoEXT, VkDescriptorSetVariableDescriptorCountAllocateInfoEXT, VkDescriptorSetVariableDescriptorCountLayoutSupportEXT, VkPhysicalDeviceDescriptorIndexingFeaturesEXT, VkPhysicalDeviceDescriptorIndexingPropertiesEXT
Document Notes
For more information, see the Vulkan Specification
This page is a generated document. Fixes and changes should be made to the generator scripts, not directly.