SDL_SetGPUAl...ramesInFlight(3)

💅 SDL_SetGPUAllowedFramesInFlight 💅

okay bestie, so this is a page from the SDL3 FUNCTIONS manual — it's SDL_SetGPUAllowedFramesInFlight from the SDL3 FUNCTIONS corner of the docs, and it's literally all about telling your GPU how many frames it's allowed to juggle at once. no cap.

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✨ NAME ✨

SDL_SetGPUAllowedFramesInFlight — configures the maximum allowed number of frames in flight. like, the vibe ceiling for how many frames your GPU can have in the air at once 🦋

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

#include <SDL3/SDL_gpu.h>

bool SDL_SetGPUAllowedFramesInFlight(
    SDL_GPUDevice *device,
    Uint32 allowed_frames_in_flight);

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

okay so here's the tea 🫖 — when the device gets created, the default value is 2. and what that means is: after you've submitted 2 frames for presentation, if the GPU hasn't finished working on the first frame yet, then SDL_AcquireGPUSwapchainTexture() will fill the swapchain texture pointer with NULL, and SDL_WaitAndAcquireGPUSwapchainTexture() will just… block. sitting there. waiting. 🙈

the tradeoff is real and it's giving classic:

• Higher values increase throughput — at the expense of visual latency.
• Lower values decrease visual latency — at the expense of throughput.

⚠️ not me forgetting to mention: calling this function will stall and flush the command queue to prevent synchronization issues. so yeah, it's a whole thing.

the minimum value of allowed frames in flight is 1, and the maximum is 3. periodt. 💅

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✨ FUNCTION PARAMETERS ✨

• device — a GPU context. your lil GPU situation 💖
• allowed_frames_in_flight — the maximum number of frames that can be pending on the GPU. the ceiling, the limit, the boundary 👑

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✨ RETURN VALUE ✨

returns true if it worked, false on error — and if it's erroring, go call SDL_GetError() for more information, she'll tell you what's up 😭

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✨ AVAILABILITY ✨

this one is available since SDL 3.2.0. she's new-ish, she's fresh, she ate 🔥

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and that's the whole page bestie!! go forth and configure your frames in flight, you're the main character of your own render loop 🌈✨

mwah 💋 — with love from the Simple Directmedia Layer girlies, SDL 3.4.18 edition 🎀🦋