How to use pipeline cache with Anvil?

[Silverlan]

GraphicsPipelineManager::create allows you to specify a custom pipeline cache object, however as far as I can tell, you're not really supposed to use that function, instead you're supposed to use the graphics pipeline manager that's automatically created with the device (BaseDevice::get_graphics_pipeline_manager), since that's the one being used in some other functions (e.g. Anvil::CommandBufferBase::record_bind_pipeline).

However, the pipeline manager created with the device (BaseDevice::init) is always created with an empty pipeline cache. If I wanted to load an existing pipeline cache from the disk, for example, how would I do that? Is that currently not possible?

[DominikWitczakAMD]

Yes, it is recommended to reuse the pipeline managers which are created at device instantiation time.

What you discovered is effectively the problem of a missing DeviceCreateInfo structure which would let the application specify, amongst other things, initial pipeline cache contents on a per-manager basis.

I'm putting this on my TODO list. Thanks for spotting this design quirk.

[WarpspeedSCP]

Maybe provide another constructor with a pipeline cache data type at the end or a path to a file storing it?

[DominikWitczakAMD]

Fixed internally. Anvil::DeviceCreateInfo now exposes a new set_pipeline_cache_ptr() function which lets apps specify which pipeline cache instance should be used for both compute and gfx pipeline cache manager. If none is specified, legacy behavior will kick in (ie. a new dummy pipeline cache will be instantiated).

I'll be pushing this fix early next week.

[DominikWitczakAMD]

Fixed in the latest version.

[Silverlan]

Hm... How does one use it exactly?
PipelineCache::create requires that you pass a device object as argument. That means you can't create the pipeline cache before you've created the device, but set_pipeline_cache_ptr is a method of DeviceCreateInfo, which means the device doesn't exist yet. So how does one create a pipeline cache before creating a device?