Lecture 14: Pipeline setup in DX12

Pipeline state object

PSO keeps a state of rendering pipeline:

• Input layout
• Root signature
• Shaders bytecode
• State of rasterizer
• Blending state
• Depth/stencil state [1]

Pipeline doesn’t keep

• Vertex and index buffers
• Primitive topology
• Render target and depth buffer
• Particular root signature, descriptor heaps and tables [1]

Command allocator

A region of memory to keep a queue GPU commands.

Has one method Reset, which allows to re-use the memory for the next commands [1]

Command queues

Command queue allows to submit commands via command list and make the fence synchronization

• ExecuteCommandLists for submitting command lists
• Signal for setting a special value to the fence [1]

Command lists

Command list a set of GPU command which will executed

• Reset transfers the command list to the record state
• Close transfers the command list out of the record state [1]

Synchronizations

Fence is an object of GPU-CPU synchronization [1]

command_queue->Signal(fence.Get(), prev_fence_value));

if (fence->GetCompletedValue() < prev_fence_value)
{
    //fence_event is a system handle for the fence
    ThrowIfFailed(fence->SetEventOnCompletion(prev_fence_value, fence_event));
    WaitForSingleObject(fence_event, INFINITE);
}