Vulkan From Scratch Part 2

Continuing posting when I find some time to work on the "from-scratch" Vulkan engine...

Review From Last Time
Bringing up on Windows first this time, will get to Linux later. Got basic system interface without non-system libraries on Windows. Still have {gamepad, audio, usb} interfaces to bring up. Got basic Vulkan window rendering full-screen compute PSO into back-buffer. Switched to always using UNDEFINED layout for source for back buffer to remove a permutation in the command buffer baking. Have new simplified rapid prototyping working.

Mechanics of Batch File
No "make" system, just a simple shell script to run the development cycle per platform. I include the source of all the helper programs inside the single source file, then comment them out in the shell script unless I need to recompile them. Using #define's to control what actually gets compiled. Two helpers. The "glsl.exe" takes the single source file and prefixes with the "#version 450" to use as GLSL shader source, outputs to "tmp.comp". Then "head.exe" converts the "comp.spv" output of "glslangValidator.exe" to a header file. Arguments of both are the shader ID which I use a two digit number for. Shell script compiles shaders, cleans up temporaries, compiles the program (aka "rom.exe"), runs the program, and depending on exit code relaunches or quits the shell script. Script below has only one shader currently,

@echo off
@rem cl /nologo /O1 /Oi /Os /Oy /fp:fast /DCPU_ /DGLSL_ /Feglsl.exe /Tprom.c
@rem cl /nologo /O1 /Oi /Os /Oy /fp:fast /DCPU_ /DHEAD_ /Fehead.exe /Tprom.c
:loop
glsl.exe 00
glslangValidator.exe -V tmp.comp
head.exe 00
del tmp.comp
del comp.spv
cl /nologo /O1 /Oi /Os /Oy /fp:fast /DCPU_ /DGAME_ /Ferom.exe /Tprom.c
rom.exe
if /i %ERRORLEVEL% equ 0 goto :eof
goto :loop

Mechanics of Graphics Abstraction Interface
This should be thought of as work in progress as it will change during bring up. I'm posting this because it shows just how simple a Compute-Generates-Graphics style engine can be in Vulkan. There are exactly 2 Descriptor Sets, one for the even and one for the odd frames. They contain everything, so no need to ever think about "binding" anything.

// ROUGH IDEA OF API

// Initialize the Vulkan interface.
// Inputs are,
//  (1.) Descriptor pool setup.
//  (2.) Descriptor set layout.
{ S_ VkDescriptorPoolSize count[1]={
   { VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_STORAGE_IMAGE,2 } };
  S_ VkDescriptorSetLayoutBinding bind[1]={
   { 0,VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_STORAGE_IMAGE,1,VK_SHADER_STAGE_COMPUTE_BIT } }; 
  GfxInit(count,1,bind,1); }

// Used to compile PSOs (this eventually will be parallelized when necessary).
// Specialization constants.
// This example passes in the size of the frame buffer.
F4 con[]={ F4_(wndR->x), F4_(wndR->y) };
// Include the shader source files.
#include "s00.h"
// Generate PSOs.
U8 pso[1];
pso[0]=GfxPso(s00_,sizeof(s00_),con,sizeof(con)>>2);

// Build the baked command buffers.
// Leaving a lot out here, will return later when this is cleaned up more.
U8 cmd=GfxBegin(cmdIdx);
...
GfxEnd(cmd);

// Loop forever replaying the groups of {even, odd} command buffers.
GfxLoop();

Specialization Constants
Absolutely great feature to have in the API. Setup constants which can have overrides set at PSO compile-time. Enables factoring out evaluation of various expressions to compile-time, setting array sizes, etc. Perfect for my setup, as I can just pass in frame size (and later other important things). Translates to this in the current dummy bring-up shader,

 // Part of what I use for cleaner types...
 #define F4 float
 #define F4x2 vec2
 #define F4x3 vec3
 #define F4x4 vec4
 ...

 // Specialization constants with default values.
 layout(constant_id=0) const F4 SCRX_=1920.0;
 layout(constant_id=1) const F4 SCRY_=1080.0;

 // Bind "everything", which thus far is just the back buffer.
 layout (set=0,binding=0,rgba8) writeonly uniform image2D img[1];

 // Showing a specific shader, in this case the dummy shader for bring up.
 #ifdef S00_
  layout (local_size_x=16,local_size_y=16) in;
  void main() { imageStore(img[0],S4x2(gl_GlobalInvocationID.xy),
   F4x4(F4(gl_GlobalInvocationID.x)*(1.0/SCRX_),F4(gl_GlobalInvocationID.y)*(1.0/SCRY_),1.0,1.0)); }
 #endif

What's Next
Setting up a double buffered SSBO for the even/odd frames for game state. Each frame reads from prior frame game state and builds the new frame game state. Everything updated GPU-side via compute dispatches. Yes burning a whole wave to do some scalar processing once and a while (like computing new player position and view-matrix, etc), but in practice the scalar work is in the noise in terms of run-time, so it doesn't matter.

Then on to simple CPU->GPU uploads (for late latched IO) and GPU->CPU downloads (for saving current state, etc)...