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vk_async_resources

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About

This sample showcases several framework helper classes to aid development with Vulkan using its C api.

Resource and Memory Management
DescriptorSet Utilities
Asynchronous Staging Transfers
Runtime GLSL Shaders to SPIR-V
Interaction with Swapchains

Resource And Staging Operations

This sample in particular demonstrates asynchronous resource creation and transfers by creating a torus with different subdivision every couple frames.

WARNING: The torus will flicker if recreation is active, this is intentional

You should see that if the asynchronous path is activated (default) the average frame time shown in the UI is faster.

Compared to OpenGL you have more responsibilities in Vulkan. For example you cannot just glDelete but have to ensure the objects are not currently used by the device. Look for unusedResources array usage.

Furthermore when you did trigger uploads in OpenGL by glBufferSubData or glBufferStorage the driver managed the upload for you through the use of staging buffers. In Vulkan these buffers would be allocated with the following memory properties that depend on the direction of the transfer:

VK_MEMORY_PROPERTY_HOST_VISIBLE_BIT |
(toDevice ? VK_MEMORY_PROPERTY_HOST_COHERENT_BIT : VK_MEMORY_PROPERTY_HOST_CACHED_BIT)

In Vulkan you want to avoid interfering with the graphics workload and make use of dedicated transfer queues. You should copy the data into a temporary staging memory and then copy from this staging resource into the finale resource using the transfer queue. Look for code related to the useAsync path that makes use of nvvk::StagingMemoryManager.

While it may be simpler and more convenient to synchronize the device with the host and avoid deferring operations, this simple approach can create stuttering and wastes performance.

Depending on the usage-scenario such synchronization may be totally fine (window resizing, major scene loading operations, no continous redraw etc.), but in general you should design for leveraging the asynchronous capabilities of Vulkan.

The following graphs don't represent time accurately, but are for illustration purposes only.

Blocking / Synchronous Transfer

The naive approach is to wait for the device, do the upload, release temporary resources and then prepare the next frame and submit it. This means a lot of idle time both on the device and the host. The benefit is that due to the blocking synchronization you can easily delete resources directly as the device is not using them in-flight.

If there are major changes in your application that cause low responsiveness anyway, this could be acceptable, but otherwise would severely impact interactivity and suffer from non-optimal total transfer times.

Note: Several of our samples do this for the sake of simplicity and reducing the complexity of the samples. But most of them also only have to load resources once and are rather static afterwards.

        -------------------------------------------------------------------------->
Graphics: ...  Render Frame |      transfer           |  IDLE :(
        -------------------------------------------------------------------------->
Host    : | wait | IDLE :(  | submit & wait | IDLE :( | release ... prep Frame + 1

Single Queue Transfer

For devices that support only one combined graphics and transfer queue you would schedule the transfer into the main queue prior the rendering operations for the next frame.

All vkQueueSubmit operations on the same queue are processed in order.

This time we need to use a VkFence to know when it's safe to release the resources used for staging Operations.

We would not wait for the fence but rather check for completion (which is what we do in this sample)

Alternatively we setup our render system that we guarantee that the host never is more than N frames ahead of the device and then simply release resources from N frames ago.

The downside of this approach is that we now impact the overall frame time depending on how much transfer work needs to be done. This can result in stuttering if there is a lot of data. The benefit is that your updates are done in pipeline with the rest of the frame, so the update process is safe and won't interfere with data being used.

F: staging fence -> signals ability to release staging resources

        ---------------------------------------------------------------------->
Graphics:   Render Frame     | transfer | signal F | Render Frame + 1 ...
        ---------------------------------------------------------------------->
Host    : | submit |  ... prep Frame + 1 ...          | check F | try release |

Asynchronous Queue Transfer

Here we can overlap the transfer to the device in a non-blocking way. Both rendering and transfer operations can continue. A lot of devices support this kind workflow.

Compared to the previous approach we need to use a VkSemaphore to ensure that our graphics work doesn't start until the transfer has completed.

It is not that much more complex compared to the previous approach but maximizes the utilization of the various device engines.

However, there is one caveat, the target buffers must not be in-flight while the async transfer is done. That means for initial buffer uploads the async queue is ideal, if you want to update existing content, you either have to double-buffer (alternating the buffers used every other frame to avoid the in-flight scenario), or use the above single queue mechanism. If "updates" are a bit more rare and not as data heavy, the two approaches should complement each other.

F: staging fence     -> signals ability to release staging resources
S: staging semaphore -> signals that transfer completed

        ---------------------------------------------------------------------->
Graphics: ...  Render Frame                 | wait S | Render Frame + 1 ...
        ---------------------------------------------------------------------->
Transfer:          | transfer | signal F, S | 
        ---------------------------------------------------------------------->
Host    : | submit |  ... prep Frame + 1 ...     | check F | try release | ..

Highlights

Sample : implements the sample. The sample itself is designed to run without a window. It is created from an existing nvvk::Context and also makes use of the sample specific FrameBuffer utility class.
Sample::init : here you will find the setup of generic utility classes that would be typical for Vulkan samples.
Sample::initTest : initializes the resources for rendering the torus scene.
Sample::initTestGeometry : sets up the vertex/index buffers for the torus and also showcases the staging transfers.
SampleWindow : derives from NVPWindow and creates a VkSurfaceKHR for it that is used with the nvvk::SwapChain. It also handles the events for the sample.
main : Sets up nvvk::Context and implements the principle hot loop.

Building

Make sure to have installed a recent Vulkan-SDK. Always use 64-bit build configurations.

Ideally, clone this and other interesting nvpro-samples repositories into a common subdirectory. You will always need nvpro_core. The nvpro_core is searched either as a subdirectory of the sample, or one directory up.