Shader Binding

Shader Object mapping between GLSL and HLSL

Binding Objects	image	buffer	imagebuffer	samplebuffer
Buffer			*
RWBuffer			*
StructedBuffer		*
RWStructedBuffer		*
Texture	*
RWTexture	*

Uniform Buffers

• MaxSize: 64KB
• Memory Access: Coherent
• Memory Storage: Local Memory

Texture Buffers

• MaxSize: 128MB or More
• Memory Access: Random
• Memory Storage: Global Texture Memory
• Fetch in Vertex Shader

If you need unordered write access, use storage images for image resources and storage buffers for regular buffer resources.

Texel buffers are useful if you want to use some of the hardware texture formats for a 1d array. No more unpacking bytes from an int in the shader!

Resource Binding in Vulkan

Object
Sampled Image	A descriptor type that represents an image view, and supports filtered (sampled) and unfiltered read-only acccess in a shader.
Sampler	An object that contains state that controls how sampled image data is sampled (or filtered) when accessed in a shader. Also a descriptor type describing the object. Represented by a VkSampler object.
Combined Image Sampler	A descriptor type that includes both a sampled image and a sampler.
Storage Image	A descriptor type that represents an image view, and supports unfiltered loads, stores, and atomics in a shader.
Uniform Buffer	A descriptor type that represents a buffer, and supports read-only access in a shader.
Dynamic Uniform Buffer	A uniform buffer whose offset is specified each time the uniform buffer is bound to a command buffer via a descriptor set.
Uniform Texel Buffer	A descriptor type that represents a buffer view, and supports unfiltered, formatted, read-only access in a shader.
Storage Buffer	A descriptor type that represents a buffer, and supports reads, writes, and atomics in a shader.
Storage Texel Buffer	A descriptor type that represents a buffer view, and supports unfiltered, formatted reads, writes, and atomics in a shader.

D3D12	Vulkan
RootSignature	PipelineLayout
D3DX12_GPU_DESCRIPTOR_HANDLE	DescriptorSet
D3DX12_ROOT_PARAMETER1&D3DX12_DESCRIPTOR_RANGE1	DescriptorSetLayout