Resources and derived objects — The Mesa 3D Graphics Library latest documentation

# Resources and derived objects

Resources represent objects that hold data: textures and buffers.

They are mostly modelled after the resources in Direct3D 10/11, but with a different transfer/update mechanism, and more features for OpenGL support.

Resources can be used in several ways, and it is required to specify all planned uses through an appropriate set of bind flags.

TODO: write much more on resources

## Transfers

Transfers are the mechanism used to access resources with the CPU.

OpenGL: OpenGL supports mapping buffers and has inline transfer functions for both buffers and textures

D3D11: D3D11 lacks transfers, but has special resource types that are mappable to the CPU address space

TODO: write much more on transfers

## Resource targets

Resource targets determine the type of a resource.

Note that drivers may not actually have the restrictions listed regarding coordinate normalization and wrap modes, and in fact efficient OpenCL support will probably require drivers that don’t have any of them, which will probably be advertised with an appropriate cap.

TODO: document all targets. Note that both 3D and cube have restrictions that depend on the hardware generation.

### PIPE_BUFFER

Buffer resource: can be used as a vertex, index, constant buffer (appropriate bind flags must be requested).

Buffers do not really have a format, it’s just bytes, but they are required to have their type set to a R8 format (without a specific “just byte” format, R8_UINT would probably make the most sense, but for historic reasons R8_UNORM is OK too). (This is just to make some shared buffer/texture code easier so format size can be queried.) width0 serves as size, most other resource properties don’t apply but must be set appropriately (depth0/height0/array_size must be 1, last_level 0).

They can be bound to stream output if supported. TODO: what about the restrictions lifted by the several later GL transform feedback extensions? How does one advertise that in Gallium?

They can be also be bound to a shader stage (for sampling) as usual by creating an appropriate sampler view, if the driver supports pipe_caps.texture_buffer_objects. This supports larger width than a 1d texture would (TODO limit currently unspecified, minimum must be at least 65536). Only the “direct fetch” sample opcodes are supported (TGSI_OPCODE_TXF, TGSI_OPCODE_SAMPLE_I) so the sampler state (coord wrapping etc.) is mostly ignored (with SAMPLE_I there’s no sampler state at all).

They can be also be bound to the framebuffer (only as color render target, not depth buffer, also there cannot be a depth buffer bound at the same time) as usual by creating an appropriate view (this is not usable in OpenGL). TODO there’s no CAP bit currently for this, there’s also unspecified size etc. limits TODO: is there any chance of supporting GL pixel buffer object acceleration with this?

OpenGL: vertex buffers in GL 1.5 or GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object

- Binding to stream out requires GL 3.0 or GL_NV_transform_feedback

- Binding as constant buffers requires GL 3.1 or GL_ARB_uniform_buffer_object

- Binding to a sampling stage requires GL 3.1 or GL_ARB_texture_buffer_object

D3D11: buffer resources - Binding to a render target requires D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_10_0

### PIPE_TEXTURE_1D / PIPE_TEXTURE_1D_ARRAY

1D surface accessed with normalized coordinates. 1D array textures are supported depending on pipe_caps.max_texture_array_layers.

- If pipe_caps.npot_textures is not supported,

    width must be a power of two

- height0 must be 1

- depth0 must be 1

- array_size must be 1 for PIPE_TEXTURE_1D

- Mipmaps can be used

- Must use normalized coordinates

OpenGL: GL_TEXTURE_1D in GL 1.0

- pipe_caps.npot_textures is equivalent to GL 2.0 or GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two

D3D11: 1D textures in D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_10_0

### PIPE_TEXTURE_RECT

2D surface with OpenGL GL_TEXTURE_RECTANGLE semantics.

- depth0 must be 1

- array_size must be 1

- last_level must be 0

- Must use unnormalized coordinates

- Must use a clamp wrap mode

OpenGL: GL_TEXTURE_RECTANGLE in GL 3.1 or GL_ARB_texture_rectangle or GL_NV_texture_rectangle

OpenCL: can create OpenCL images based on this, that can then be sampled arbitrarily

D3D11: not supported (only PIPE_TEXTURE_2D with normalized coordinates is supported)

### PIPE_TEXTURE_2D / PIPE_TEXTURE_2D_ARRAY

2D surface accessed with normalized coordinates. 2D array textures are supported depending on pipe_caps.max_texture_array_layers.

- If pipe_caps.npot_textures is not supported,

    width and height must be powers of two

- depth0 must be 1

- array_size must be 1 for PIPE_TEXTURE_2D

- Mipmaps can be used

- Must use normalized coordinates

- No special restrictions on wrap modes

OpenGL: GL_TEXTURE_2D in GL 1.0

- pipe_caps.npot_textures is equivalent to GL 2.0 or GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two

OpenCL: can create OpenCL images based on this, that can then be sampled arbitrarily

D3D11: 2D textures

- pipe_caps.npot_textures is equivalent to D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_9_3

### PIPE_TEXTURE_3D

3-dimensional array of texels. Mipmap dimensions are reduced in all 3 coordinates.

- If pipe_caps.npot_textures is not supported,

    width, height and depth must be powers of two

- array_size must be 1

- Must use normalized coordinates

OpenGL: GL_TEXTURE_3D in GL 1.2 or GL_EXT_texture3D

- pipe_caps.npot_textures is equivalent to GL 2.0 or GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two

D3D11: 3D textures

- pipe_caps.npot_textures is equivalent to D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_10_0

### PIPE_TEXTURE_CUBE / PIPE_TEXTURE_CUBE_ARRAY

Cube maps consist of 6 2D faces. The 6 surfaces form an imaginary cube, and sampling happens by mapping an input 3-vector to the point of the cube surface in that direction. Cube map arrays are supported depending on pipe_caps.cube_map_array.

Sampling may be optionally seamless if a driver supports it (pipe_caps.seamless_cube_map), resulting in filtering taking samples from multiple surfaces near to the edge.

- Width and height must be equal

- depth0 must be 1

- array_size must be a multiple of 6

- If pipe_caps.npot_textures is not supported,

    width and height must be powers of two

- Must use normalized coordinates

OpenGL: GL_TEXTURE_CUBE_MAP in GL 1.3 or GL_EXT_texture_cube_map

- pipe_caps.npot_textures is equivalent to GL 2.0 or GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two

- Seamless cube maps require GL 3.2 or GL_ARB_seamless_cube_map or GL_AMD_seamless_cubemap_per_texture

- Cube map arrays require GL 4.0 or GL_ARB_texture_cube_map_array

D3D11: 2D array textures with the D3D11_RESOURCE_MISC_TEXTURECUBE flag

- pipe_caps.npot_textures is equivalent to D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_10_0

- Cube map arrays require D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_10_1

## Surfaces

Surfaces are views of a resource that can be bound as a framebuffer to serve as the render target or depth buffer.

TODO: write much more on surfaces

OpenGL: FBOs are collections of surfaces in GL 3.0 or GL_ARB_framebuffer_object

D3D11: render target views and depth/stencil views

## Sampler views

Sampler views are views of a resource that can be bound to a pipeline stage to be sampled from shaders.

TODO: write much more on sampler views

OpenGL: texture objects are actually sampler view and resource in a single unit

D3D11: shader resource views