Do I need to put shader uniforms into the Vertex function signature?

Question

I have a shader that should accept width, height, u offset and v offset and a color.

the signature looks like this:

vertex VertexOut texturedVertex(constant packed_float3* pPosition   [[ buffer(0) ]],
                            constant packed_float2*        pTexCoords  [[ buffer(2) ]],
                            constant float&         pWidth      [[buffer(4)]],
                            constant float&         pHeight     [[buffer(5)]],
                            uint                    vid         [[ vertex_id ]],
                            constant packed_float4&        pColor      [[buffer(3)]])

This looks ugly and not scalable at all. Is it possible to have the values be declared separately, something like in OpenGL's uniforms?

Answer 1

Argument Buffers - an argument buffer represents a group of resources that can be collectively assigned as an argument to a graphics or compute function. You use argument buffers to reduce CPU overhead, simplify resource management, and implement GPU-driven pipelines.

The following example shows an argument buffer structure named My_AB that specifies resources for a kernel function named my_kernel:

struct My_AB {
    texture2d<float, access::write> a;
    depth2d<float> b;
    sampler c;
    texture2d<float> d;
    device float4* e;
    texture2d<float> f;
    int g;
};
kernel void my_kernel(constant My_AB & my_AB [[buffer(0)]])
{ ... }