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.

Note	The Vulkan Guide can be built as a single page using `asciidoctor guide.adoc`

1. Logistics Overview

1.1. What is Vulkan?

1.2. What you can do with Vulkan

1.3. Vulkan Spec

1.4. Platforms

1.5. Checking for Support

1.6. Versions

1.7. Vulkan Release Summary

1.8. What is SPIR-V?

1.9. Portability Initiative

1.10. Vulkan CTS

1.11. Vulkan Development Tools

1.12. Vulkan Validation Overview

1.13. Vulkan Decoder Ring (GL, GLES, DirectX, and Metal)

2. Using Vulkan

2.1. Loader

2.2. Layers

2.3. Querying Properties, Extensions, Features, Limits, and Formats

2.3.1. Enabling Extensions

2.3.2. Enabling Features

2.3.3. Formats

2.4. Queues and Queue Family

2.5. WSI

2.6. pNext and sType

2.7. Synchronization

2.7.1. Porting to VK_KHR_synchronization2

2.8. Memory Allocation Strategy

2.8.1. Sparse Resources

2.8.2. Protected Memory

2.9. Pipeline Caching/Derivatives

2.10. Threading

2.11. Depth

VK_EXT_depth_range_unrestricted, VK_EXT_depth_clip_enable, VK_EXT_depth_clip_control

2.12. Mapping Data to Shaders

2.12.1. Vertex Input Data Processing

2.13. Robustness

VK_EXT_image_robustness, VK_EXT_robustness2

2.14. Dynamic State

VK_EXT_extended_dynamic_state, VK_EXT_extended_dynamic_state2, VK_EXT_vertex_input_dynamic_state, VK_EXT_color_write_enable

2.15. Subgroups

2.16. Atomics

2.17. Common Pitfalls

2.18. Using HLSL shaders

3. When and Why to use Extensions

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

3.1. 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_maintenance4, 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, VK_KHR_format_feature_flags2, VK_EXT_rgba10x6_formats

3.2. Device Groups

VK_KHR_device_group, VK_KHR_device_group_creation

3.3. External Memory and Sychronization

VK_KHR_external_fence, VK_KHR_external_memory, VK_KHR_external_semaphore

3.4. Ray Tracing

VK_KHR_acceleration_structure, VK_KHR_ray_tracing_pipeline, VK_KHR_ray_query, VK_KHR_pipeline_library, VK_KHR_deferred_host_operations

3.5. 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

3.6. Translation Layer Extensions

VK_EXT_custom_border_color, VK_EXT_border_color_swizzle, VK_EXT_depth_clip_enable, VK_EXT_depth_clip_control, VK_EXT_provoking_vertex, VK_EXT_transform_feedback, VK_EXT_image_view_min_lod

Vulkan® Guide