Does Vulkan allow draw commands in memory buffers?

Question

I've mainly used directx in my 3d programming. I'm just learning Vulkan now. Is this correct: In vulkan, a draw call (an operation that causes a group of primitives to be rendered, indexed or non-indexed), can only be executed in a command stream by executing a draw call when building that command stream. If you want to draw 3 objects using different vertex or index buffers (/offsets), you will, in the general case, execute 3 API calls. In d3d12, instead, the arguments for a draw call can come from a GPU memory buffer, filled in any of the ways buffers are filled, including using the GPU.

I'm aware of (complex) ways to essentially draw separate models as one batch, even on API's older than dx12. And of course drawing repeated geometry without multiple drawcalls is trivial.

But the straightforward "write draw commands into GPU memory like you write other data into GPU memory" feature is only available on DX12, correct?

Answer 1

Indirect drawing is a thing in Vulkan. It does require a single vertex buffer contains all the data but you don't need to draw all of the buffer in each call.

There is an extension that allows you to build a set of drawing commands in gpu memory. It also allows binding different descriptor sets and vertex buffers between draws.