Quick start

Project setup

In your project code:

1. Include "vk_mem_alloc.h" file wherever you want to use the library.
2. In exacly one C++ file define following macro before include to build library implementation.

#define VMA_IMPLEMENTATION
#include "vk_mem_alloc.h"

Initialization

At program startup:

1. Initialize Vulkan to have VkPhysicalDevice and VkDevice object.
2. Fill VmaAllocatorCreateInfo structure and create VmaAllocator object by calling vmaCreateAllocator().

VmaAllocatorCreateInfo allocatorInfo = {};
allocatorInfo.physicalDevice = physicalDevice;
allocatorInfo.device = device;

VmaAllocator allocator;
vmaCreateAllocator(&allocatorInfo, &allocator);

Resource allocation

When you want to create a buffer or image:

1. Fill VkBufferCreateInfo / VkImageCreateInfo structure.
2. Fill VmaAllocationCreateInfo structure.
3. Call vmaCreateBuffer() / vmaCreateImage() to get VkBuffer/VkImage with memory already allocated and bound to it.

VkBufferCreateInfo bufferInfo = { VK_STRUCTURE_TYPE_BUFFER_CREATE_INFO };
bufferInfo.size = 65536;
bufferInfo.usage = VK_BUFFER_USAGE_VERTEX_BUFFER_BIT | VK_BUFFER_USAGE_TRANSFER_DST_BIT;

VmaAllocationCreateInfo allocInfo = {};
allocInfo.usage = VMA_MEMORY_USAGE_GPU_ONLY;

VkBuffer buffer;
VmaAllocation allocation;
vmaCreateBuffer(allocator, &bufferInfo, &allocInfo, &buffer, &allocation, nullptr);

Don't forget to destroy your objects when no longer needed:

vmaDestroyBuffer(allocator, buffer, allocation);
vmaDestroyAllocator(allocator);