VK_EXT_memory_budget(3)

# VK_EXT_memory_budget(3) Manual Page

## Name

VK_EXT_memory_budget - device extension

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## Registered Extension Number

238

## Revision

1

## Ratification Status

Ratified

## Extension and Version Dependencies

VK_KHR_get_physical_device_properties2
or
Vulkan Version 1.1

## Contact

- Jeff Bolz [GitHub]jeffbolznv

## Other Extension Metadata

Last Modified Date

  2018-10-08

Contributors

  - Jeff Bolz, NVIDIA

  - Jeff Juliano, NVIDIA

## Description

While running a Vulkan application, other processes on the machine might also be attempting to use the same device memory, which can pose problems. This extension adds support for querying the amount of memory used and the total memory budget for a memory heap. The values returned by this query are implementation-dependent and can depend on a variety of factors including operating system and system load.

The VkPhysicalDeviceMemoryBudgetPropertiesEXT::`heapBudget` values can be used as a guideline for how much total memory from each heap the current process can use at any given time, before allocations may start failing or causing performance degradation. The values may change based on other activity in the system that is outside the scope and control of the Vulkan implementation.

The VkPhysicalDeviceMemoryBudgetPropertiesEXT::`heapUsage` will display the current process estimated heap usage.

With this information, the idea is for an application at some interval (once per frame, per few seconds, etc) to query `heapBudget` and `heapUsage`. From here the application can notice if it is over budget and decide how it wants to handle the memory situation (free it, move to host memory, changing mipmap levels, etc). This extension is designed to be used in concert with `VK_EXT_memory_priority` to help with this part of memory management.

## New Structures

- Extending VkPhysicalDeviceMemoryProperties2:

  - VkPhysicalDeviceMemoryBudgetPropertiesEXT

## New Enum Constants

- `VK_EXT_MEMORY_BUDGET_EXTENSION_NAME`

- `VK_EXT_MEMORY_BUDGET_SPEC_VERSION`

- Extending VkStructureType:

  - VK_STRUCTURE_TYPE_PHYSICAL_DEVICE_MEMORY_BUDGET_PROPERTIES_EXT

## Version History

- Revision 1, 2018-10-08 (Jeff Bolz)

  - Initial revision

## See Also

No cross-references are available

## Document Notes

For more information, see the Vulkan Specification.

This page is a generated document. Fixes and changes should be made to the generator scripts, not directly.

## Copyright

Copyright 2014-2026 The Khronos Group Inc.

SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-4.0