vkDestroyPipeline

vkDestroyPipeline is a Vulkan API function used to release the resources associated with a graphics or compute pipeline object. When a pipeline is no longer needed, calling vkDestroyPipeline allows the Vulkan implementation to free the associated memory and other system resources, preventing potential memory leaks.

The function takes two arguments: a VkDevice representing the logical device on which the pipeline was created, and a VkPipeline object representing the pipeline to be destroyed. It is crucial to ensure that no operations are still using the pipeline when vkDestroyPipeline is called. If the pipeline is still in use, the behavior is undefined, which can lead to crashes or other unpredictable results.

Typically, pipelines are created using vkCreateGraphicsPipelines or vkCreateComputePipelines. After the application has finished rendering or computing with a particular pipeline, it should call vkDestroyPipeline to clean it up. This process is analogous to freeing memory allocated in other programming environments. Failing to destroy pipelines when they are no longer required can lead to a gradual increase in memory consumption, potentially impacting the application's performance and stability over time. It is good practice to destroy all created pipelines before the VkDevice itself is destroyed.