SDL_AcquireGPUCommandBuffer(3)

📦
version 3.4.18 · 9 versions
, in fedora 43, fedora 44

✨ SDL_AcquireGPUCommandBuffer ✨

okay bestie, welcome to the SDL3 FUNCTIONS corner of the man pages 🫶 this one's all about grabbing yourself a command buffer, and ngl it's kinda iconic.

🎀 NAME 🎀

SDL_AcquireGPUCommandBuffer — acquire a command buffer. that's it, that's the whole vibe 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

#include <SDL3/SDL_gpu.h>

SDL_GPUCommandBuffer * SDL_AcquireGPUCommandBuffer(
    SDL_GPUDevice *device);

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so here's the tea ☕ this command buffer? it's managed by the implementation, which means you do not free it. not your job, not your problem, put the free() down bestie 🙈

also, thread rules, and they are strict:

  • the command buffer may only be used on the thread it was acquired on 🔒
  • the command buffer should be submitted on the thread it was acquired on too

no passing it around like a group chat screenshot, fr fr.

now the fun part 🦋 it is totally valid to acquire multiple command buffers on the same thread at once. in fact, there's a whole common design pattern where you grab two command buffers per frame:

  1. one dedicated to render and compute passes
  2. the other dedicated to copy passes and other preparatory work, like generating mipmaps ✨

and the reason this slaps? interleaving commands between the two command buffers reduces the total amount of passes overall, which improves rendering performance. it's giving optimization, it's giving main character energy, we love to see it 👑

🧚 FUNCTION PARAMETERS 🧚

  • device — a GPU context. that's the one thing you hand over, that's it 💜

⭐ RETURN VALUE ⭐

returns a command buffer 💖 …or NULL on failure 😭 (yeah, it happens). if that's the case, call SDL_GetError() for more information, she'll tell you what went wrong.

🌈 AVAILABILITY 🌈

this function has been available since SDL 3.2.0 ✨ so if you're on something older, sorry babe, no command buffer for you 💀

👑 SEE ALSO 👑

go read those next, iykyk 🎀

and that's the whole page!! brought to you by Simple Directmedia Layer, running SDL 3.4.18 — mwah, take care of her, she's a queen 💅✨🦋

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