The Pipeline Cache Compiler (PCC) Tool

The Pipeline Cache Compiler is an offline tool that generates a pipeline cache for use at runtime by a Vulkan SC application. It takes input in the form of JSON source files and generates a binary pipeline cache. Note that a large number of pipelines may be embedded into a single binary cache.

Tool usage:

 pcc -chip [gv11b|ga10b] -path [input dir] -out [output filename]

Refer to Running the Vulkan SC Samples for usage examples. JSON files can be constructed manually or using the tool described on that page.

Khronos provides further documentation about the JSON format, pipeline caches and their use, in the Vulkan SC Specification, in "Offline Pipeline Compilation".

Cache Versioning

NVIDIA DRIVE? OS ensures that a pipeline cache generated by PCC can be used by any matching DRIVE OS minor sub version. DRIVE OS versioning occurs with four digits, as follows:

majorVersion.majorSubVersion.minorVersion.minorSubVersion

Compatibility is ensured for any changes in minorSubVersion. It is ensured that drivers from a particular version of DRIVE OS will accept pipeline caches built by a previous releases, where only the minorSubVersion has changed.

If the version does not match, an error is generated.