GPU computing in Vulkan

The ultimate way to parallel computing using Vulkan API

What you'll learn:
Install Vulkan library and use it in a C project
Create Makefile for a project
Enumerate GPUs in the system
Allocate a GPU and its resources
Prepare and submit a command buffer to a queue in the GPU
Allocate a memory in the GPU and read / write to it.
Write a program for GPU (ie shader) and run it in thousands of instances at once.
Generate a fractal image in the GPU

Requirements
Programming experience
Interest in parallel execution
Interest in fast execution of small routines

Description
The course shows the simplest possible way to create a project utilizing Vulkan library to run a compute shader: From Makefile to the program performing very fast parallel calculations in GPU.

Vulkan is a cross plattform 3D graphics and computing library, successor of OpenGL. It was first released in 2016 and today it is available on most of modern operating systems.

All functions and operations with Vulkan library are demonstrated using C language, in a very understandable way, suitable also for developers specialized in other languages. To fully understand the course, some experience in programming and using static libraries is required though.

The course tries to lead you to visible results as soon as possible. Vulkan library usually requires to write hundreds (up to thousand) of lines to get first results and to understand what is happening inside, but here, the project grows while keeping your attention to all the dependencies.

The course describes how to:

Read properties and limits of the graphics adapters in the system

Allocate the GPU logical device and its execution queues

Allocate the GPU memory, read and write data from / to it

create a command buffer, records actions in it and send it to the GPU queue for execution

Implement data processing in a shader and execute in parallel

Generate a fractal image in the GPU

Compare results of GPU and CPU computing

Compare the speed of GPU and CPU computing

At the end, you'll be ready to write and execute your own compute shader using Vulkan library. Or, it gives a very good start to implement 3D graphics in Vulkan since you will already understand the principle and basics of Vulkan API.

Who this course is for
Software developers
3D graphics beginners interested in the latest technologies
Mathematicians looking for a parallel execution of algorithms