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Structures

VkApplicationInfo

Structure specifying application information

The VkApplicationInfo structure is defined as:

typedef struct VkApplicationInfo {
    VkStructureType sType;
    const void* pNext;
    const char* pApplicationName;
    uint32_t applicationVersion;
    const char* pEngineName;
    uint32_t engineVersion;
    uint32_t apiVersion;
} VkApplicationInfo;
  • sType is a VkStructureType value identifying this structure.
  • pNext is NULL or a pointer to a structure extending this structure.
  • pApplicationName is NULL or is a pointer to a null-terminated UTF-8 string containing the name of the application.
  • applicationVersion is an unsigned integer variable containing the developer-supplied version number of the application.
  • pEngineName is NULL or is a pointer to a null-terminated UTF-8 string containing the name of the engine (if any) used to create the application.
  • engineVersion is an unsigned integer variable containing the developer-supplied version number of the engine used to create the application.
  • apiVersion must be the highest version of Vulkan that the application is designed to use, encoded as described in Version Numbers. The patch version number specified in apiVersion is ignored when creating an instance object. The variant version of the instance must match that requested in apiVersion.

Vulkan 1.0 implementations were required to return VK_ERROR_INCOMPATIBLE_DRIVER if apiVersion was larger than 1.0. Implementations that support Vulkan 1.1 or later must not return VK_ERROR_INCOMPATIBLE_DRIVER for any value of apiVersion .

Because Vulkan 1.0 implementations may fail with VK_ERROR_INCOMPATIBLE_DRIVER, applications should determine the version of Vulkan available before calling vkCreateInstance. If the vkGetInstanceProcAddr returns NULL for vkEnumerateInstanceVersion, it is a Vulkan 1.0 implementation. Otherwise, the application can call vkEnumerateInstanceVersion to determine the version of Vulkan.

As long as the instance supports at least Vulkan 1.1, an application can use different versions of Vulkan with an instance than it does with a device or physical device.

The Khronos validation layers will treat apiVersion as the highest API version the application targets, and will validate API usage against the minimum of that version and the implementation version (instance or device, depending on context). If an application tries to use functionality from a greater version than this, a validation error will be triggered.For example, if the instance supports Vulkan 1.1 and three physical devices support Vulkan 1.0, Vulkan 1.1, and Vulkan 1.2, respectively, and if the application sets apiVersion to 1.2, the application can use the following versions of Vulkan:
  • Vulkan 1.0 can be used with the instance and with all physical devices.
  • Vulkan 1.1 can be used with the instance and with the physical devices that support Vulkan 1.1 and Vulkan 1.2.
  • Vulkan 1.2 can be used with the physical device that supports Vulkan 1.2.
If we modify the above example so that the application sets apiVersion to 1.1, then the application must not use Vulkan 1.2 functionality on the physical device that supports Vulkan 1.2.
Providing a NULLVkInstanceCreateInfo::pApplicationInfo or providing an apiVersion of 0 is equivalent to providing an apiVersion of VK_MAKE_API_VERSION(0,1,0,0).

Valid Usage

VUID-VkApplicationInfo-apiVersion-04010

If apiVersion is not 0, then it must be greater than or equal to VK_API_VERSION_1_0

Valid Usage (Implicit)

VUID-VkApplicationInfo-sType-sType

sType must be VK_STRUCTURE_TYPE_APPLICATION_INFO

VUID-VkApplicationInfo-pNext-pNext

pNext must be NULL

VUID-VkApplicationInfo-pApplicationName-parameter

If pApplicationName is not NULL, pApplicationName must be a null-terminated UTF-8 string

VUID-VkApplicationInfo-pEngineName-parameter

If pEngineName is not NULL, pEngineName must be a null-terminated UTF-8 string