Resource binding

Advanced Programmer

When drawing vertices using an effect, the shaders expect certain resources to be available, including:

• textures and buffers
• samplers
• constant buffers

Automatic resource binding

The EffectInstance class handles the details of enumerating these resources from a loaded effect as well as binding them.

It exposes the RootSignature, which has to be set as pipeline state, and allows to fill constant buffers and bind resources based on a ParameterCollection.

Code: Using an EffectInstance

// Create a EffectInstance and use it to set up the pipeline
var effectInstance = new EffectInstance(EffectSystem.LoadEffect("MyEffect").WaitForResult());
pipelineStateDescription.EffectBytecode = effectInstance.Effect.Bytecode;
pipelineStateDescription.RootSignature = effectInstance.RootSignature;

// Update constant buffers and bind resources
effectInstance.Apply(context.GraphicsContext);

Manual resource binding

When more optimized code is required (eg in the rendering pipeline), constant buffer updates and resource binding can be done manually.