Welcome¶

What is it?¶

raygpu is a fast and simple Graphics Library written in C99, inspired by and based on raylib. It targets Vulkan 1.1 or Vulkan 1.3 through WGVK and WebGPU through Dawn and emdawnwebgpu, a C wrapper for the WebGPU JS Api.

Targeting Vulkan, Metal, DirectX 11/12, OpenGL (ES) and the WebGPU API in browsers makes raygpu a viable choice for portable desktop and browser application.

Starter Code¶

Designed to be as easy to use as possible, this is all the code required for a starter application.

#include <raygpu.h>
int main(){
    InitWindow(500, 500, "Window");
    while(!WindowShouldClose()){
        BeginDrawing();
        ClearBackground(BLACK);
        DrawCircle(GetMouseX(), GetMouseY(), 50, 50, RED); //Draw a red circle at the cursor's position
        EndDrawing();
    }
}

Building¶

Minimal compile command¶

Compiling a raygpu program for Web is as easy as running

emcc --use-port=emdawnwebgpu examples/core_shapes.c src/*.c -I include -I amalgamation/SPIRV-Reflect/ -sUSE_GLFW=3 -sALLOW_MEMORY_GROWTH=1 -sSINGLE_FILE=1 -o core_shapes.html

--use-port=emdawnwebgpu: Use dawn's WebGPU bindings (might soon become -sUSE_WEBGPU=1)
examples/core_shapes.c src/*.c: One example's and the library's source code
-I include -I amalgamation/SPIRV-Reflect/: The required include directories
-sUSE_GLFW=3: Link emscriptens glfw3 library
-sALLOW_MEMORY_GROWTH: Don't get hit by out of memory errors, instead resize
-sSINGLE_FILE: Produce a single, "executable" html file
-o core_shapes.html: The output filename Make sure you have a recent version of emscripten installed.

CMake¶

The primarily supported way to build is through CMake. Using the vulkan backend with GLSL Shaders and GLFW is also buildable with a plain Makefile.

The CMake config supports a couple of options, namely

SUPPORT_WGPU_BACKEND
SUPPORT_VULKAN_BACKEND
SUPPORT_GLFW
SUPPORT_SDL3
SUPPORT_GLSL_PARSER
SUPPORT_WGSL_PARSER

The options SUPPORT_WGPU_BACKEND and SUPPORT_VULKAN_BACKEND are mutually exclusive and one must be set.

Those options can be appended to a cmake command line like this example:

cmake .. -DSUPPORT_VULKAN_BACKEND=ON -DSUPPORT_GLSL_PARSER=ON -DSUPPORT_GLFW=ON

Omitting both the SUPPORT_WGPU_BACKEND and SUPPORT_WGSL_BACKEND drastically reduces build-time, as dawn and tint are not built!

For more info on cmake, scroll down to the CMake section

Makefile¶

git clone https://github.com/manuel5975p/raygpu/
cd raygpu
make
# or
make -j $(nproc)

builds a static library libraygpu.a with the glfw and glslang libraries baked in. From there, an example can be built using

g++ examples/core_window.c -o core_window -DSUPPORT_VULKAN_BACKEND=1 -I include/ -L . -lraygpu

CMake¶

If you want to add raygpu to your current project, add these snippets to your CMakeLists.txt:

# This is to support FetchContent in the first place.
# Ignore if you already include it.
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.19)
include(FetchContent)

FetchContent_Declare(
    raygpu_git
    GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/manuel5975p/raygpu.git
    GIT_SHALLOW True #optional, enable --depth 1 (shallow) clone
)
FetchContent_MakeAvailable(raygpu_git)

target_link_libraries(<your target> PUBLIC raygpu)

Building for Linux or MacOS¶

Linux requires

Ubuntu/Debian: sudo apt install libvulkan-dev
Arch / Manjaro: sudo pacman -S vulkan-headers vulkan-swrast
Fedora: sudo dnf install vulkan

git clone https://github.com/manuel5975p/raygpu.git
cd raygpu
mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release # optionally: -GNinja

make -j8 # or ninja i.a.
./examples/core_window

Building for Windows¶

git clone https://github.com/manuel5975p/raygpu.git
cd raygpu
mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -G "Visual Studio 17 2022"

See the complete list of generators for older Visual Studio versions.

Building for Web¶

Building for web simply requires

Using the WebGPU backend
Having emscripten installed

git clone https://github.com/manuel5975p/raygpu.git
cd raygpu
mkdir build && cd build
emcmake cmake .. -DSUPPORT_WGPU_BACKEND=ON -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release