This section provides a mapping between the Vulkan term for a concept and the terminology used in other APIs. It is organized in alphabetical order by Vulkan term. If you are searching for the Vulkan equivalent of a concept used in an API you know, you can find the term you know in this list and then search the Vulkan specification for the corresponding Vulkan term.
Not everything will be a perfect 1:1 match, the goal is to give a rough idea where to start looking in the spec.
| Vulkan | GL,GLES | DirectX | Metal |
|---|---|---|---|
| buffer device address | GPU virtual address | ||
| buffer view, texel buffer | texture buffer | typed buffer SRV, typed buffer UAV | texture buffer |
| color attachments | color attachments | render target | color attachments or render target |
| command buffer | part of context, display list, NV_command_list | command list | command buffer |
| command pool | part of context | command allocator | command queue |
| conditional rendering | conditional rendering | predication | |
| depth/stencil attachment | depth Attachment and stencil Attachment | depth/stencil view | depth attachment and stencil attachment, depth render target and stencil render target |
| descriptor | descriptor | argument | |
| descriptor pool | descriptor heap | heap | |
| descriptor set | descriptor table | argument buffer | |
| descriptor set layout binding, push descriptor | root parameter | argument in shader parameter list | |
| device group | implicit (E.g. SLI,CrossFire) | multi-adapter device | peer group |
| device memory | heap | placement heap | |
| event | split barrier | ||
| fence | fence, sync | ID3D12Fence::SetEventOnCompletion |
completed handler, -[MTLCommandBuffer waitUntilComplete] |
| fragment shader | fragment shader | pixel shader | fragment shader or fragment function |
| fragment shader interlock | GL_ARB_fragment_shader_interlock | rasterizer order view (ROV) | raster order group |
| framebuffer | framebuffer object | collection of resources | |
| heap | pool | ||
| image | texture and renderbuffer | texture | texture |
| image layout | resource state | ||
| image tiling | image layout, swizzle | ||
| image view | texture view | render target view, depth/stencil view, shader resource view, unordered access view | texture view |
interface matching (in/out) |
varying (removed in GLSL 4.20) | Matching semantics | |
| invocation | invocation | thread, lane | thread, lane |
| layer | slice | slice | |
| logical device | context | device | device |
| memory type | automatically managed, texture storage hint, buffer storage | heap type, CPU page property | storage mode, CPU cache mode |
| multiview rendering | multiview rendering | view instancing | vertex amplification |
| physical device | adapter, node | device | |
| pipeline | state and program or program pipeline | pipeline state | pipeline state |
| pipeline barrier, memory barrier | texture barrier, memory barrier | resource barrier | texture barrier, memory barrier |
| pipeline layout | root signature | ||
| queue | part of context | command queue | command queue |
| semaphore | fence, sync | fence | fence, event |
| shader module | shader object | resulting ID3DBlob from D3DCompileFromFile |
shader library |
| shading rate attachment | shading rate image | rasterization rate map | |
| sparse block | sparse block | tile | sparse tile |
| sparse image | sparse texture | reserved resource (D12), tiled resource (D11) | sparse texture |
| storage buffer | shader storage buffer | raw or structured buffer UAV | buffer in device address space |
| subgroup | subgroup | wave | SIMD-group, quadgroup |
| surface | HDC, GLXDrawable, EGLSurface | window | layer |
| swapchain | Part of HDC, GLXDrawable, EGLSurface | swapchain | layer |
| swapchain image | default framebuffer | drawable texture | |
| tessellation control shader | tessellation control shader | hull shader | tessellation compute kernel |
| tessellation evaluation shader | tessellation evaluation shader | domain shader | post-tessellation vertex shader |
| timeline semaphore | D3D12 fence | event | |
| transform feedback | transform feedback | stream-out | |
| uniform buffer | uniform buffer | constant buffer views (CBV) | buffer in constant address space |
| workgroup | workgroup | threadgroup | threadgroup |