The VkSamplerCreateInfo structure is defined as:

typedef struct VkSamplerCreateInfo {
    VkStructureType sType;
    const void* pNext;
    VkSamplerCreateFlags flags;
    VkFilter magFilter;
    VkFilter minFilter;
    VkSamplerMipmapMode mipmapMode;
    VkSamplerAddressMode addressModeU;
    VkSamplerAddressMode addressModeV;
    VkSamplerAddressMode addressModeW;
    float mipLodBias;
    VkBool32 anisotropyEnable;
    float maxAnisotropy;
    VkBool32 compareEnable;
    VkCompareOp compareOp;
    float minLod;
    float maxLod;
    VkBorderColor borderColor;
    VkBool32 unnormalizedCoordinates;
} VkSamplerCreateInfo;

• sType is a VkStructureType value identifying this structure.
• pNext is NULL or a pointer to a structure extending this structure.
• flags is a bitmask of VkSamplerCreateFlagBits describing additional parameters of the sampler.
• magFilter is a VkFilter value specifying the magnification filter to apply to lookups.
• minFilter is a VkFilter value specifying the minification filter to apply to lookups.
• mipmapMode is a VkSamplerMipmapMode value specifying the mipmap filter to apply to lookups.
• addressModeU is a VkSamplerAddressMode value specifying the addressing mode for U coordinates outside [0,1).
• addressModeV is a VkSamplerAddressMode value specifying the addressing mode for V coordinates outside [0,1).
• addressModeW is a VkSamplerAddressMode value specifying the addressing mode for W coordinates outside [0,1).
• mipLodBias is the bias to be added to mipmap LOD calculation and bias provided by image sampling functions in SPIR-V, as described in the LOD Operation section.
• anisotropyEnable is VK_TRUE to enable anisotropic filtering, as described in the Texel Anisotropic Filtering section, or VK_FALSE otherwise.
• maxAnisotropy is the anisotropy value clamp used by the sampler when anisotropyEnable is VK_TRUE. If anisotropyEnable is VK_FALSE, maxAnisotropy is ignored.
• compareEnable is VK_TRUE to enable comparison against a reference value during lookups, or VK_FALSE otherwise.
  • Note: Some implementations will default to shader state if this member does not match.
• compareOp is a VkCompareOp value specifying the comparison operator to apply to fetched data before filtering as described in the Depth Compare Operation section.
• minLod is used to clamp the minimum of the computed LOD value.
• maxLod is used to clamp the maximum of the computed LOD value. To avoid clamping the maximum value, set maxLod to the constant VK_LOD_CLAMP_NONE.
• borderColor is a VkBorderColor value specifying the predefined border color to use.
• unnormalizedCoordinates controls whether to use unnormalized or normalized texel coordinates to address texels of the image. When unnormalizedCoordinates is VK_TRUE, the range of the image coordinates used to lookup the texel is in the range of zero to the image size in each dimension. When unnormalizedCoordinates is VK_FALSE, the range of image coordinates is zero to one.
  When unnormalizedCoordinates is VK_TRUE, images the sampler is used with in the shader have the following requirements:
  • The viewType must be either VK_IMAGE_VIEW_TYPE_1D or VK_IMAGE_VIEW_TYPE_2D.
  • The image view must have a single layer and a single mip level.
  
  When unnormalizedCoordinates is VK_TRUE, image built-in functions in the shader that use the sampler have the following requirements:
  • The functions must not use projection.
  • The functions must not use offsets.

The maximum number of sampler objects which can be simultaneously created on a device is implementation-dependent and specified by the maxSamplerAllocationCount member of the VkPhysicalDeviceLimits structure.

Since VkSampler is a non-dispatchable handle type, implementations may return the same handle for sampler state vectors that are identical. In such cases, all such objects would only count once against the maxSamplerAllocationCount limit.