[](http://isitmaintained.com/project/GPUOpen-LibrariesAndSDKs/D3D12MemoryAllocator "Average time to resolve an issue")
Memory allocation and resource (buffer and texture) creation in new, explicit graphics APIs (Vulkan® and Direct3D 12) is difficult comparing to older graphics APIs like Direct3D 11 or OpenGL® because it is recommended to allocate bigger blocks of memory and assign parts of them to resources. [Vulkan Memory Allocator](https://github.com/GPUOpen-LibrariesAndSDKs/VulkanMemoryAllocator/) is a library that implements this functionality for Vulkan. It is available online since 2017 and it is successfully used in many software projects, including some AAA game studios. This is an equivalent library for D3D12.
This library can help developers to manage memory allocations and resource creation by offering function `Allocator::CreateResource` similar to the standard `ID3D12Device::CreateCommittedResource`. It internally:
- Allocates and keeps track of bigger memory heaps, used and unused ranges inside them, finds best matching unused ranges to create new resources there as placed resources.
- Automatically handles resource heap tier - whether it's `D3D12_RESOURCE_HEAP_TIER_1` that requires to keep certain classes of resources separate or `D3D12_RESOURCE_HEAP_TIER_2` that allows to keep them all together.
- Virtual allocator - possibility to use core allocation algorithm without using real GPU memory, to allocate your own stuff, e.g. sub-allocate pieces of one large buffer.
- Well-documented - description of all classes and functions provided, along with chapters that contain general description and example code.
- Thread-safety: Library is designed to be used in multithreaded code.
- Configuration: Fill optional members of `ALLOCATOR_DESC` structure to provide custom CPU memory allocator and other parameters.
- Customization: Predefine appropriate macros to provide your own implementation of external facilities used by the library, like assert, mutex, and atomic.
- Statistics: Obtain detailed statistics about the amount of memory used, unused, number of allocated blocks, number of allocations etc. - globally and per memory heap type.
- Debug annotations: Associate string name with every allocation.
- Self-contained C++ library in single pair of H + CPP files. No external dependencies other than standard C, C++ library and Windows SDK. Some features of C++14 used. STL containers, C++ exceptions, and RTTI are not used.
- Object-oriented interface in a convention similar to D3D12.
- Error handling implemented by returning `HRESULT` error codes - same way as in D3D12.
- Interface documented using Doxygen-style comments.
# Example
Basic usage of this library is very simple. Advanced features are optional. After you created global `Allocator` object, a complete code needed to create a texture may look like this:
The release comes with precompiled binary executable for "D3D12Sample" application which contains test suite. It is compiled using Visual Studio 2019, so it requires appropriate libraries to work, including "MSVCP140.dll", "VCRUNTIME140.dll", "VCRUNTIME140_1.dll". If its launch fails with error message telling about those files missing, please download and install [Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015, 2017 and 2019](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2977003/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads), "x64" version.
- **[TerraFX.Interop.D3D12MemoryAllocator](https://github.com/terrafx/terrafx.interop.d3d12memoryallocator)** - interop bindings for this library for C#, as used by [TerraFX](https://github.com/terrafx/terrafx). License: MIT.
