Efficiently copying Swift Array to memory buffer for iOS Metal

Question

I am writing an iOS application using Apple\'s new Metal framework. I have an array of Matrix4 objects (see Ray Wenderlich\'s tutorial) that I need to pass in to a shader via

Answer 1

I've done this with an array of particles that I pass to a compute shader.

In a nutshell, I define some constants and declare a handful of mutable pointers and a mutable buffer pointer:

let particleCount: Int = 1048576
var particlesMemory:UnsafeMutablePointer<Void> = nil
let alignment:UInt = 0x4000
let particlesMemoryByteSize:UInt = UInt(1048576) * UInt(sizeof(Particle))
var particlesVoidPtr: COpaquePointer!
var particlesParticlePtr: UnsafeMutablePointer<Particle>!

var particlesParticleBufferPtr: UnsafeMutableBufferPointer<Particle>!

When I set up the particles, I populate the pointers and use posix_memalign() to allocate the memory:

    posix_memalign(&particlesMemory, alignment, particlesMemoryByteSize)

    particlesVoidPtr = COpaquePointer(particlesMemory)
    particlesParticlePtr = UnsafeMutablePointer<Particle>(particlesVoidPtr)

    particlesParticleBufferPtr = UnsafeMutableBufferPointer(start: particlesParticlePtr, count: particleCount)

The loop to populate the particles is slightly different - I now loop over the buffer pointer:

    for index in particlesParticleBufferPtr.startIndex ..< particlesParticleBufferPtr.endIndex
    {
        [...]

        let particle = Particle(positionX: positionX, positionY: positionY, velocityX: velocityX, velocityY: velocityY)

        particlesParticleBufferPtr[index] = particle
    }

Inside the applyShader() function, I create a copy of the memory which is used as both the input and output buffer:

    let particlesBufferNoCopy = device.newBufferWithBytesNoCopy(particlesMemory, length: Int(particlesMemoryByteSize),
        options: nil, deallocator: nil)

    commandEncoder.setBuffer(particlesBufferNoCopy, offset: 0, atIndex: 0)

    commandEncoder.setBuffer(particlesBufferNoCopy, offset: 0, atIndex: 1)

...and after the shader has run, I put the shared memory (particlesMemory) back into the buffer pointer:

    particlesVoidPtr = COpaquePointer(particlesMemory)
    particlesParticlePtr = UnsafeMutablePointer(particlesVoidPtr)

    particlesParticleBufferPtr = UnsafeMutableBufferPointer(start: particlesParticlePtr, count: particleCount)

There's an up to date Swift 2.0 version of this at my GitHub repo here

Answer 2

Obviously the point of using shared memory and MTLDevice.makeBuffer(bytesNoCopy:...) is to avoid redundant memory copies. Therefore, ideally we look for a design that allows us to easily manipulate the data after it's already been loaded into the MTLBuffer object.

After researching this for a while, I've decided to try and create a semi-generic solution to allow for simplified allocation of page-aligned memory, loading your content into that memory, and subsequently manipulating your items in that shared memory block.

I've created a Swift array implementation called PageAlignedArray that matches the interface and functionality of the built-in Swift array, but always resides on page-aligned memory, and so can be very easily made into an MTLBuffer. I've also added a convenience method to directly convert PageAlignedArray into a Metal buffer.

Of course, you can continue to mutate your array afterwards and your updates will be automatically available to the GPU courtesy of the shared-memory architecture. However, keep in mind that you must regenerate your MTLBuffer object whenever the array's length changes.

Here's a quick code sample:

  var alignedArray : PageAlignedContiguousArray<matrix_double4x4> = [matrixTest, matrixTest]
  alignedArray.append(item)
  alignedArray.removeFirst() // Behaves just like a built-in array, with all convenience methods

  // When it's time to generate a Metal buffer:
  let testMetalBuffer = device?.makeBufferWithPageAlignedArray(alignedArray)

The sample uses matrix_double4x4, but the array should work for any Swift value types. Please note that if you use a reference type (such as any kind of class), the array will contain pointers to your elements and so won't be usable from your GPU code.

Answer 3

A Swift Array is promised to be contiguous memory, but you need to make sure it's really a Swift Array and not secretly an NSArray. If you want to be completely certain, use a ContiguousArray. That will ensure contiguous memory even if the objects in it are bridgeable to ObjC. If you want even more control over the memory, look at ManagedBuffer.

With that, you should be using newBufferWithBytesNoCopy(length:options:deallocator) to create a MTL buffer around your existing memory.