GPUComputePassEncoder

Experimental: This is an experimental technology
Check the Browser compatibility table carefully before using this in production.

The GPUComputePassEncoder interface of the WebGPU API encodes commands related to controlling the compute shader stage, as issued by a GPUComputePipeline. It forms part of the overall encoding activity of a GPUCommandEncoder.

A compute pipeline contains a single compute stage in which a compute shader takes general data, processes it in parallel across a specified number of workgroups, then returns the result in one or more buffers.

A GPUComputePassEncoder object instance is created via the GPUCommandEncoder.beginComputePass() property.

Instance properties

label

A string providing a label that can be used to identify the object, for example in GPUError messages or console warnings.

Instance methods

dispatchWorkgroups()

Dispatches a specific grid of workgroups to perform the work being done by the current GPUComputePipeline.

dispatchWorkgroupsIndirect()

Dispatches a grid of workgroups, defined by the parameters of a GPUBuffer, to perform the work being done by the current GPUComputePipeline.

end()

Completes recording of the current compute pass command sequence.

insertDebugMarker()

Marks a specific point in a series of encoded commands with a label.

popDebugGroup()

Ends a debug group, which is begun with a pushDebugGroup() call.

pushDebugGroup()

Begins a debug group, which is marked with a specified label, and will contain all subsequent encoded commands up until a popDebugGroup() method is invoked.

setBindGroup()

Sets the GPUBindGroup to use for subsequent compute commands, for a given index.

setPipeline()

Sets the GPUComputePipeline to use for this compute pass.

Examples

In our basic compute demo, several commands are recorded via a GPUCommandEncoder. Most of these commands originate from the GPUComputePassEncoder created via GPUCommandEncoder.beginComputePass().

js

// ...

// Create GPUCommandEncoder to encode commands to issue to the GPU
const commandEncoder = device.createCommandEncoder();

// Create GPUComputePassEncoder to initiate compute pass
const passEncoder = commandEncoder.beginComputePass();

// Issue commands
passEncoder.setPipeline(computePipeline);
passEncoder.setBindGroup(0, bindGroup);
passEncoder.dispatchWorkgroups(Math.ceil(BUFFER_SIZE / 64));

// End the compute pass
passEncoder.end();

// Copy output buffer to staging buffer
commandEncoder.copyBufferToBuffer(
  output,
  0, // Source offset
  stagingBuffer,
  0, // Destination offset
  BUFFER_SIZE
);

// End frame by passing array of command buffers to command queue for execution
device.queue.submit([commandEncoder.finish()]);

// ...

Specifications

Specification
WebGPU
# gpucomputepassencoder

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also