C Specification

Bits which may be set in VkPhysicalDeviceExternalSemaphoreInfo::handleType, specifying an external semaphore handle type, are:

// Provided by VK_VERSION_1_1
typedef enum VkExternalSemaphoreHandleTypeFlagBits {
    VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_OPAQUE_FD_BIT = 0x00000001,
    VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_OPAQUE_WIN32_BIT = 0x00000002,
    VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_OPAQUE_WIN32_KMT_BIT = 0x00000004,
    VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_D3D12_FENCE_BIT = 0x00000008,
    VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_SYNC_FD_BIT = 0x00000010,
  // Provided by VK_FUCHSIA_external_semaphore
    VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_ZIRCON_EVENT_BIT_FUCHSIA = 0x00000080,
    VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_D3D11_FENCE_BIT = VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_D3D12_FENCE_BIT,
  // Provided by VK_KHR_external_semaphore_capabilities
    VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_OPAQUE_FD_BIT_KHR = VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_OPAQUE_FD_BIT,
  // Provided by VK_KHR_external_semaphore_capabilities
    VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_OPAQUE_WIN32_BIT_KHR = VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_OPAQUE_WIN32_BIT,
  // Provided by VK_KHR_external_semaphore_capabilities
    VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_OPAQUE_WIN32_KMT_BIT_KHR = VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_OPAQUE_WIN32_KMT_BIT,
  // Provided by VK_KHR_external_semaphore_capabilities
    VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_D3D12_FENCE_BIT_KHR = VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_D3D12_FENCE_BIT,
  // Provided by VK_KHR_external_semaphore_capabilities
    VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_SYNC_FD_BIT_KHR = VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_SYNC_FD_BIT,
} VkExternalSemaphoreHandleTypeFlagBits;
// Provided by VK_KHR_external_semaphore_capabilities
// Equivalent to VkExternalSemaphoreHandleTypeFlagBits
typedef VkExternalSemaphoreHandleTypeFlagBits VkExternalSemaphoreHandleTypeFlagBitsKHR;

Description

  • VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_OPAQUE_FD_BIT specifies a POSIX file descriptor handle that has only limited valid usage outside of Vulkan and other compatible APIs. It must be compatible with the POSIX system calls dup, dup2, close, and the non-standard system call dup3. Additionally, it must be transportable over a socket using an SCM_RIGHTS control message. It owns a reference to the underlying synchronization primitive represented by its Vulkan semaphore object.

  • VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_OPAQUE_WIN32_BIT specifies an NT handle that has only limited valid usage outside of Vulkan and other compatible APIs. It must be compatible with the functions DuplicateHandle, CloseHandle, CompareObjectHandles, GetHandleInformation, and SetHandleInformation. It owns a reference to the underlying synchronization primitive represented by its Vulkan semaphore object.

  • VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_OPAQUE_WIN32_KMT_BIT specifies a global share handle that has only limited valid usage outside of Vulkan and other compatible APIs. It is not compatible with any native APIs. It does not own a reference to the underlying synchronization primitive represented by its Vulkan semaphore object, and will therefore become invalid when all Vulkan semaphore objects associated with it are destroyed.

  • VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_D3D12_FENCE_BIT specifies an NT handle returned by ID3D12Device::CreateSharedHandle referring to a Direct3D 12 fence, or ID3D11Device5::CreateFence referring to a Direct3D 11 fence. It owns a reference to the underlying synchronization primitive associated with the Direct3D fence.

  • VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_D3D11_FENCE_BIT is an alias of VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_D3D12_FENCE_BIT with the same meaning. It is provided for convenience and code clarity when interacting with D3D11 fences.

  • VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_SYNC_FD_BIT specifies a POSIX file descriptor handle to a Linux Sync File or Android Fence object. It can be used with any native API accepting a valid sync file or fence as input. It owns a reference to the underlying synchronization primitive associated with the file descriptor. Implementations which support importing this handle type must accept any type of sync or fence FD supported by the native system they are running on.

  • VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_ZIRCON_EVENT_BIT_FUCHSIA specifies a handle to a Zircon event object. It can be used with any native API that accepts a Zircon event handle. Zircon event handles are created with ZX_RIGHTS_BASIC and ZX_RIGHTS_SIGNAL rights. Vulkan on Fuchsia uses only the ZX_EVENT_SIGNALED bit when signaling or waiting.

Note

Handles of type VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_SYNC_FD_BIT generated by the implementation may represent either Linux Sync Files or Android Fences at the implementation’s discretion. Applications should only use operations defined for both types of file descriptors, unless they know via means external to Vulkan the type of the file descriptor, or are prepared to deal with the system-defined operation failures resulting from using the wrong type.

Some external semaphore handle types can only be shared within the same underlying physical device and/or the same driver version, as defined in the following table:

Table 1. External Semaphore Handle Types Compatibility

Handle type

VkPhysicalDeviceIDProperties::driverUUID

VkPhysicalDeviceIDProperties::deviceUUID

VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_OPAQUE_FD_BIT

Must match

Must match

VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_OPAQUE_WIN32_BIT

Must match

Must match

VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_OPAQUE_WIN32_KMT_BIT

Must match

Must match

VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_D3D12_FENCE_BIT

Must match

Must match

VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_SYNC_FD_BIT

No restriction

No restriction

VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_ZIRCON_EVENT_BIT_FUCHSIA

No restriction

No restriction

See Also

VK_KHR_external_semaphore_capabilities, VK_VERSION_1_1, VkExternalSemaphoreHandleTypeFlags, VkImportSemaphoreFdInfoKHR, VkImportSemaphoreWin32HandleInfoKHR, VkImportSemaphoreZirconHandleInfoFUCHSIA, VkPhysicalDeviceExternalSemaphoreInfo, VkSemaphoreGetFdInfoKHR, VkSemaphoreGetWin32HandleInfoKHR, VkSemaphoreGetZirconHandleInfoFUCHSIA

Document Notes

For more information, see the Vulkan Specification.

This page is extracted from the Vulkan Specification. Fixes and changes should be made to the Specification, not directly.

Copyright

Copyright 2014-2026 The Khronos Group Inc.

SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-4.0