The DirectX Shader Compiler project includes a compiler and related tools used to compile High-Level Shader Language (HLSL) programs into DirectX Intermediate Language (DXIL) representation. Applications that make use of DirectX for graphics, games, and computation can use it to generate shader programs.
For more information, see the Wiki.
The starting point of the project is a fork of the LLVM and Clang projects, modified to accept HLSL and emit a validated container that can be consumed by GPU drivers.
At the moment, the DirectX HLSL Compiler provides the following components:
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dxc.exe, a command-line tool that can compile HLSL programs for shader model 6.0 or higher
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dxcompiler.dll, a DLL providing a componentized compiler, assembler, disassembler, and validator
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various other tools based on the above components
The Microsoft Windows SDK releases include a supported version of the compiler and validator.
The goal of the project is to allow the broader community of shader developers to contribute to the language and representation of shader programs, maintaining the principles of compatibility and supportability for the platform. It's currently in active development across two axes: language evolution (with no impact to DXIL representation), and surfacing hardware capabilities (with impact to DXIL, and thus requiring coordination with GPU implementations).
As an example of community contribution, this project can also target the SPIR-V intermediate representation. Please see the doc for how HLSL features are mapped to SPIR-V, and the wiki page for how to build, use, and contribute to the SPIR-V CodeGen.
Before you build, you will need to have some additional software installed. This is the most straightforward path - see Building Sources on the Wiki for more options, including Visual Studio 2015 and Ninja support.
- Git.
- Visual Studio 2017. Select the following workloads: Universal Windows Platform Development and Desktop Development with C++.
- Python. Version 2.7.x is required, 3.x might work but it's not officially supported. You need not change your PATH variable during installation.
After cloning the project, you can set up a build environment shortcut by double-clicking the utils\hct\hctshortcut.js file. This will create a shortcut on your desktop with a default configuration.
Tests are built using the TAEF framework. Unless you have the Windows Driver Kit installed, you should run the script at utils\hct\hctgettaef.py from your build environment before you start building to download and unzip it as an external dependency. You should only need to do this once.
To build, run this command on the HLSL Console.
hctbuild
You can also clean, build and run tests with this command.
hctcheckin
To see a list of additional commands available, run hcthelp
To run tests, open the HLSL Console and run this command after a successful build.
hcttest
Some tests will run shaders and verify their behavior. These tests also involve a driver that can run these execute these shaders. See the next section on how this should be currently set up.
If you use Ninja to build the project, please make sure to supply -ninja to hcttest for testing.
To run shaders compiled as DXIL, you will need support from the operating system as well as from the driver for your graphics adapter. Windows 10 Creators Update is the first version to support DXIL shaders.
Drivers indicate they can run DXIL by reporting support for Shader Model 6, possibly in experimental mode. To enable support in these cases, the Developer mode setting must be enabled.
Hardware GPU support for DXIL is provided by the following vendors:
NVIDIA's new r381 drivers (r381.65 and later) provide experimental mode support for DXIL 1.0 and Shader Model 6.0. Here are the release notes, and a download link.
AMD's latest driver with support for DXIL 1.0 and Shader Model 6 in experimental mode is Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.4.2.
In the absence of hardware support, tests will run using the Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform (WARP) adapter. To get the correct version of WARP working, in addition to setting Developer mode, you should install the 'Graphics Tools' optional feature via the Settings app (click the 'Apps' icon, then the 'Manage optional features' link, then 'Add a feature', and select 'Graphics Tools' from the list).
For more information, see this Wiki page.
To make contributions, see the CONTRIBUTING.md file in this project.
You can find documentation for this project in the docs directory. These contain the original LLVM documentation files, as well as two new files worth nothing:
- HLSLChanges.rst: this is the starting point for how this fork diverges from the original llvm/clang sources
- DXIL.rst: this file contains the specification for the DXIL format
- tools/clang/docs/UsingDxc.rst: this file contains a user guide for dxc.exe
DirectX Shader Compiler is distributed under the terms of the University of Illinois Open Source License.
See LICENSE.txt and ThirdPartyNotices.txt for details.
This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct. For more information see the Code of Conduct FAQ or contact opencode@microsoft.com with any additional questions or comments.