{"id":1255,"date":"2017-10-26T15:36:05","date_gmt":"2017-10-26T21:36:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lunarg.com\/?p=1255"},"modified":"2025-01-15T18:18:57","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T01:18:57","slug":"vulkan-tools-framework-for-building-and-debugging-apps-and-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lunarg.com\/vulkan-tools-framework-for-building-and-debugging-apps-and-games\/","title":{"rendered":"Help for Building and Debugging Vulkan Apps and Games"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">LunarG provides a Vulkan API SDK, which offers a tools framework for building and debugging applications and games. The main components in the Vulkan tools framework include t<\/span>he Vulkan API, a Common Loader, Validation and Debugging Layers, Trace and Replay Tools, and SPIR-V-Related Tools.<!--more--><\/p>\n<h2><b>Vulkan API<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Vulkan API is a low-overhead, explicit, cross-platform, graphics application programming interface. This API provides applications with direct control over the GPU, maximizing application performance.\u00a0\u00a0For more information on the Vulkan specification and API, refer to\u00a0<a title=\"Khronos Vulkan website\" href=\"https:\/\/khronos.org\/registry\/vulkan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Khronos.org<\/a>. For tutorial-level information, refer to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lunarg.com\/\">LunarG<\/a>&#8216;s Vulkan tutorial, which can be found in the SDK in the\u00a0<code>Documentation\\Tutorial<\/code>\u00a0directory and on the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/vulkan.lunarg.com\/doc\/sdk\/latest\/windows\/tutorial\/html\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LunarXchange website<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Common Loader<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Vulkan Common Loader provides the interface between Vulkan applications and layer and installable client driver libraries.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Refer to the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/vulkan.lunarg.com\/doc\/view\/1.0.61.1\/windows\/LoaderAndLayerInterface.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Vulkan Common Loader<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> guide for additional information on the loader and its driver, layer, and extension management capabilities.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Validation and Debugging Layers<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Vulkan supports intercepting, or hooking, API entry points via the Layer framework. A layer can intercept a subset of, or all, Vulkan entry points. The SDK provides many validation layers, including those that track memory, objects, and state.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Refer to the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/vulkan.lunarg.com\/doc\/view\/1.0.61.1\/windows\/layers.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Vulkan Validation and Debugging Layers<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> guide for detailed information on the Layer framework and those layers included in the SDK.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Supporting Tools<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The Vulkan SDK also provides other debugging tools for Vulkan applications, including trace and replay and SPIR-V generation, disassembly, and remapping tools.<\/p>\n<p>Refer to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/vulkan.lunarg.com\/doc\/view\/1.0.61.1\/windows\/trace_tools.html\">Vulkan Trace and Replay Tools<\/a>\u00a0guide for additional information on Vulkan application tracing and replay.<\/p>\n<p>Refer to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/vulkan.lunarg.com\/doc\/view\/1.0.61.1\/windows\/spirv_toolchain.html\">SPIR-V Toolchain<\/a>\u00a0guide for additional information on SPIR-V related tools.<\/p>\n<p>Look for future posts to provide more information about these supporting tools.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LunarG provides a Vulkan API SDK, which offers a tools framework for building and debugging applications and games. The main components in the Vulkan tools framework include the Vulkan API, a Common Loader, Validation and Debugging Layers, Trace and Replay Tools, and SPIR-V-Related Tools.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":1968,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[130],"tags":[10,11,6],"class_list":["post-1255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-debugging","tag-tools","tag-vulkan"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Help for Building and Debugging Vulkan Apps and Games - LunarG<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"LunarG provides an SDK for the Vulkan API, which offers a tools framework for building and debugging applications and games. 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