vkCreateDevice

vkCreateDevice is a Vulkan API function used to create a logical device from a physical device. The logical device serves as the main handle through which an application interacts with the GPU, submits commands, and allocates device resources. Creating the device enables a specified set of device features, queue families, and extensions, and allocates per-device resources. The function returns a VkDevice handle on success and a VkResult error code on failure, such as VK_SUCCESS, VK_ERROR_OUT_OF_HOST_MEMORY, VK_ERROR_OUT_OF_DEVICE_MEMORY, VK_ERROR_EXTENSION_NOT_PRESENT, VK_ERROR_FEATURE_NOT_PRESENT, or VK_ERROR_INITIALIZATION_FAILED.

Parameters and result

- physicalDevice: the VkPhysicalDevice object representing the target GPU.

- pCreateInfo: a pointer to a VkDeviceCreateInfo structure describing the queues to create, enabled device features, and any extensions and layers to enable.

- pAllocator: optional allocation callbacks; can be NULL to use the default allocator.

- pDevice: pointer to a VkDevice handle that will receive the created logical device.

Usage notes

The VkDeviceCreateInfo structure specifies, among other things, queueCreateInfoCount and pQueueCreateInfos to declare which queue families and how many queues to create, as well as the set of enabled extensions and device features. Extensions and features must be supported by the physical device before the call succeeds. After creation, queue handles for the requested queues can be obtained with vkGetDeviceQueue, enabling command submission to the device. The created device is used for almost all subsequent Vulkan operations.

See also

VkDevice, VkDeviceCreateInfo, VkPhysicalDevice, vkGetDeviceQueue.