Crafter.Graphics/examples/VulkanTriangle/README.md
catbot 45ecc91424 fix(vulkan-rt): merge TLAS push constant into existing block (#18)
The NVIDIA descriptor-heap AS-read workaround (#15) rewrote heap
acceleration-structure reads into a load of the TLAS device address from
a push-constant block. It always *synthesized a new* push-constant block,
so any ray-tracing shader that already declared one ended up with two —
which SPIR-V forbids ("at most one push constant block statically used per
entry point"), and vkCreateShaderModule's spirv-val check rejected:

    Entry point id '4' uses more than one PushConstant interface.

WorkaroundNvidiaAS::Patch now detects an existing PushConstant variable and,
when present, appends a single ulong member (the TLAS address) to that
block instead of adding a second one, reading the address through the
shader's own push-constant variable. The append offset is the end of the
user's block, computed from the members' explicit Offset/ArrayStride/
MatrixStride decorations (correct under both scalar and std140 layout) and
rounded up to 8. Shaders with no push constant of their own keep getting a
freshly synthesized single-member block at offset 0, exactly as before.

That offset is published via Device::workaroundTlasPushOffset and RTPass
feeds it to vkCmdPushDataEXT so the address lands where the rewritten load
reads it (0 for the synthesized case, preserving prior behaviour).

Verified on the affected driver (NVIDIA 610.43.02, RTX 4090): VulkanTriangle
ray-traces correctly and validation-clean both with and without a
user-declared raygen push constant.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-06-03 02:28:02 +00:00

94 lines
4.6 KiB
Markdown
Raw Permalink Blame History

This file contains ambiguous Unicode characters

This file contains Unicode characters that might be confused with other characters. If you think that this is intentional, you can safely ignore this warning. Use the Escape button to reveal them.

# VulkanTriangle
The minimal ray-traced example. Renders a single static triangle through
`vkCmdTraceRaysKHR`. No UI.
## What it shows
- `Device::Initialize()` + `Window` + swapchain bring-up.
- A `DescriptorHeapVulkan` sized for one image + one buffer slot, with
slot ranges allocated via the bump-allocator API
(`AllocateImageSlots`, `AllocateBufferSlots`).
- A `PipelineRTVulkan` built from raygen / miss / closesthit SPIR-V
shaders compiled at build time.
- `Mesh::Build` constructing a BLAS and `RenderingElement3D::BuildTLAS`
the per-frame TLAS.
- Direct descriptor writes via `vkWriteResourceDescriptorsEXT` for the
swapchain views and TLAS device addresses.
- `RTPass{&pipeline}` plugged into `window.passes` — the canonical
way to add ray tracing to a window in this library.
It's the smallest sensible test of the bindless `VK_EXT_descriptor_heap`
+ ray-tracing path.
## Run
```bash
cd examples/VulkanTriangle
crafter-build -r
```
You should see a 1280×720 window with an RGB-barycentric triangle filling
roughly the centre. On the NVIDIA driver this works through an engine-side
workaround for a driver fault — see below.
## Native status — NVIDIA driver fault, worked around
On NVIDIA driver `610.43.02` (Vulkan 1.4) reading the acceleration
structure through `VK_EXT_descriptor_heap` aborts the device with
`VK_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST` on the first frame. This is a **driver-side fault**
in the brand-new descriptor-heap acceleration-structure path, not an engine
bug (full investigation in #7, summarised below).
**The engine works around it transparently** (issue #15). On the NVIDIA
proprietary driver only, `VulkanShader` rewrites the compiled SPIR-V at
module-load time so that every `OpLoad` of an `accelerationStructureEXT`
out of the heap becomes a load of the TLAS *device address* (from a
push-constant block) followed by
`OpConvertUToAccelerationStructureKHR` — which reads no descriptor and so
never touches the faulting path. `RTPass` feeds the active frame's TLAS
address in as push data. SPIR-V allows only one push-constant block per
entry point, so when a shader already declares one the TLAS address is
appended to *that* block (rather than adding a second, which would fail
validation — issue #18); shaders without a push constant get a freshly
synthesized single-member block. `raygen.glsl` and the example code are
unchanged; acceleration structures still bind into the heap normally. On
every other driver the workaround is inert. It's gated on
`Device::workaroundDescriptorHeapAS` and confined to one fenced block in
`interfaces/Crafter.Graphics-ShaderVulkan.cppm` so it can be deleted wholesale
once a fixed NVIDIA driver ships.
### The underlying fault (#7)
The fault was traced to the **acceleration-structure read through
`VK_EXT_descriptor_heap`**, *not* to the engine's RT setup:
- The BLAS/TLAS build is correct and finishes before rendering
(`Window::FinishInit` does `vkQueueWaitIdle`). The built TLAS instance
has an identity transform, `mask = 0xFF`, and the correct BLAS device
address.
- The AS descriptor is written correctly — `vkWriteResourceDescriptorsEXT`
stores the TLAS device address at the expected heap byte offset (verified
by dumping the raw heap bytes after the write).
- The Khronos validation layers (1.4.350, current) report **zero** errors
for the whole frame, including the SBT regions handed to
`vkCmdTraceRaysKHR`.
- Storage images and buffers bound through the **same** descriptor heap
work — with `traceRayEXT` removed, the raygen shader's `imageStore`
renders correctly, so the heap binding / image path is sound.
- Both the ray-tracing pipeline (`traceRayEXT`) **and** inline ray query
(`rayQueryEXT`, which uses no shader binding table) fault identically
when they read the acceleration structure from the heap. That isolates
the fault to the AS-via-heap read, not the SBT or the RT pipeline.
- The fault reproduces even with the AS descriptor written at heap byte 0
and read at shader index 0 (no descriptor offset/stride ambiguity), and
is unaffected by the `pAddressRange` size.
- `VK_EXT_descriptor_heap` is brand new; on this machine NVIDIA is the only
implementation that advertises it (llvmpipe does not), so there is no
second conformant implementation to cross-check against.
**Conclusion:** this is a driver-side fault in NVIDIA's
`VK_EXT_descriptor_heap` acceleration-structure path, not an engine bug, and
it should be reported to NVIDIA. Until a fixed driver ships, the SPIR-V
rewrite above keeps the native RT path working; once it does, remove the
workaround and the heap AS read becomes the direct path again.