SDL_shadercross

The current SDL GPU API does not intend to use this shader language. Instead, users are expected to provide shaders in the relevant format for each underlying graphics API [1], using whatever custom content pipeline they desire. One of the developers made an interesting blog post motivating this decision [2] (although some of the finer details have changed since that was written). There is also a "third party" solution [3] by another one of the developers that enables cross-platform use of SPIR-V or HLSL shaders using SPIRV-Cross and FXC/DXC, respectively (NB: It seems this currently wouldn't compile against SDL3 master). [1] https://github.com/libsdl-org/SDL/blob/d1a2c57fb99f29c38f509... [2] https://moonside.games/posts/layers-all-the-way-down [3] https://github.com/flibitijibibo/SDL_gpu_shadercross

The reason WebGPU took so long was that they decided to write their own shading language instead of using SPIR-V. SDL didn't make that mistake, you bring your own shader compilers and translation tools. There is a sister project for a cross-platform shading language [1] and another for translating existing ones between each other [2] , but they get done when they get done, and the rest of the API doesn't have to wait for them. WebGPU was made by a committee of vendors and language-lawyers (standards-lawyers?) with politics and bureaucracy, and it shows. SDL_GPU is made by game developers who value pragmatism above all (and often are looked down upon from the ivory tower because of that). [1]: https://github.com/libsdl-org/SDL_shader_tools [2]: https://github.com/flibitijibibo/SDL_gpu_shadercross