Is Sebastian Aaltonen's "NoAPI" Vulkan in reach?

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bitRAKE

Joined: 21 Jul 2003
Posts: 4607
Location: vpcmpistri

bitRAKE 17 Aug 2026, 09:31

How close can we get to Sebastian Aaltonen's "No Graphics API" thesis [Blog] [Video] [X][code] today — GPU pointers instead of descriptors, one root pointer for shader inputs, no PSOs, no barriers, no layout transitions? The interesting thing is that Vulkan has been converging on almost exactly that list, one extension at a time.

I would say it is "Low API" than "No API":

This first example is the shortcut path to the Vulkan triangle rendering. It seems large, but that's because it includes the Vulkan API generator and an automatic loader system based on API usage!

This work builds on (in no particular order):
- NEWCOFF bigobj format and COMDAT support.
- Vulkan SDK
- MS and LLVM dev tools.
- Powershell.
- and of course, fasm2.

Description:		Download
Filename:	triangle.7z
Filesize:	25.86 KB
Downloaded:	58 Time(s)

Last edited by bitRAKE on 05 Sep 2026, 21:15; edited 1 time in total

17 Aug 2026, 09:31

Roman

Joined: 21 Apr 2012
Posts: 2132

Roman 17 Aug 2026, 15:58

I looking your example vulkan.
Funy, in vertex shader you put triangle vertices.

Code:

vec2 positions[3] = vec2[](
    vec2( 0.0, -0.6),
    vec2( 0.6,  0.6),
    vec2(-0.6,  0.6));

vec3 colors[3] = vec3[](
    vec3(1.0, 0.25, 0.25),
    vec3(0.25, 1.0, 0.4),
    vec3(0.35, 0.55, 1.0));

layout(location = 0) out vec3 v_color;

void main() {
    gl_Position = vec4(positions[gl_VertexIndex], 0.0, 1.0);
    v_color = colors[gl_VertexIndex];
}

This cool, but not help for big mesh. Like some dog or human or building.
And we must created vertex and index buffers in vulkan.
And set layout mesh to shaders.

Last edited by Roman on 18 Aug 2026, 06:34; edited 1 time in total

17 Aug 2026, 15:58

Roman

Joined: 21 Apr 2012
Posts: 2132

Roman 17 Aug 2026, 16:19

Quote:

I would say it is "Low API" than "No API":

And using vulkan api Smile

Funny

17 Aug 2026, 16:19

bitRAKE

Joined: 21 Jul 2003
Posts: 4607
Location: vpcmpistri

bitRAKE 18 Aug 2026, 06:08

Roman wrote:

This cool, but not help for big mesh.

You're not going to believe this, but using tinygltf to load models, it's only 3K more code to display any model.

18 Aug 2026, 06:08

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