This extension defines a special queue family, QUEUE_FAMILY_FOREIGN_EXT, which can be used to transfer ownership of resources backed by external memory to foreign, external queues. This is similar to QUEUE_FAMILY_EXTERNAL_KHR, defined in VK_KHR_external_memory. The key differences between the two are:

• The queues represented by QUEUE_FAMILY_EXTERNAL_KHR must share the same physical device and the same driver version as the current VkInstance. QUEUE_FAMILY_FOREIGN_EXT has no such restrictions. It can represent devices and drivers from other vendors, and can even represent non-Vulkan-capable devices.
• All resources backed by external memory support QUEUE_FAMILY_EXTERNAL_KHR. Support for QUEUE_FAMILY_FOREIGN_EXT is more restrictive.
• Applications should expect transitions to/from QUEUE_FAMILY_FOREIGN_EXT to be more expensive than transitions to/from QUEUE_FAMILY_EXTERNAL_KHR.

VK_EXT_queue_family_foreign

Name String

VK_EXT_queue_family_foreign

Extension Type

Device extension

Registered Extension Number

127

Revision

1

Extension and Version Dependencies

VK_KHR_external_memory or Version 1.1

Contact

• Lina Versace versalinyaa

Other Extension Metadata

Last Modified Date

2017-11-01

IP Status

No known IP claims.

Contributors

• Lina Versace, Google
• James Jones, NVIDIA
• Faith Ekstrand, Intel
• Jesse Hall, Google
• Daniel Rakos, AMD
• Ray Smith, ARM