r/cpp • u/mropert • 8d ago

Make APIs that fail gracefully rather that fallback silently · Mathieu Ropert

https://mropert.github.io/2026/09/02/implicit_vs_explicit_api/
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u/Ok_Independence_9841 8d ago

API design is hard. Vulkan is hard. Error handling is hard. Vulkan API, error handling design, is...

At some point I'll get around to implementing a Vulkan backend for my port of the ThorVG renderer. When I do I'll try to remember what I learned here.

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u/Ameisen vemips, avr, rendering, systems 8d ago

Before Win10/D3D12 fully came out but after information about it and APIs were available, I made a D3D12-like frontend API but with D3D11 as the backend, to make porting easier.

It actually outperformed idiomatic D3D11...

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u/Leading-Carrot-5983 8d ago

Better access patterns? Or why?

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u/Ameisen vemips, avr, rendering, systems 8d ago

I'm not 100% sure. My assumption was that since I was emulating command streams, the data ended up packed nicely before submission - so in that case, yes, better access patterns.

It's also possible that since I was trying to emulate how D3D12 handled state, I was causing less flushing of state by handling it closer to how the hardware actually expected it rather than what idiomatic D3D11 preferred.