VK_EXT_queue_family_foreign(3)

# VK_EXT_queue_family_foreign(3) Manual Page

## Name

VK_EXT_queue_family_foreign - device extension

## Registered Extension Number

127

## Revision

1

## Ratification Status

Ratified

## Extension and Version Dependencies

VK_KHR_external_memory
or
Vulkan Version 1.1

## Contact

- James Jones [GitHub]cubanismo

## Other Extension Metadata

Last Modified Date

  2017-11-01

IP Status

  No known IP claims.

Contributors

  - Lina Versace, Google

  - James Jones, NVIDIA

  - Faith Ekstrand, Intel

  - Jesse Hall, Google

  - Daniel Rakos, AMD

  - Ray Smith, ARM

## Description

This extension defines a special queue family, VK_QUEUE_FAMILY_FOREIGN_EXT, which can be used to transfer ownership of resources backed by external memory to foreign, external queues. This is similar to VK_QUEUE_FAMILY_EXTERNAL_KHR, defined in `VK_KHR_external_memory`. The key differences between the two are:

- The queues represented by VK_QUEUE_FAMILY_EXTERNAL_KHR must share the same physical device and the same driver version as the current VkInstance. VK_QUEUE_FAMILY_FOREIGN_EXT has no such restrictions. It can represent devices and drivers from other vendors, and can even represent non-Vulkan-capable devices.

- All resources backed by external memory support VK_QUEUE_FAMILY_EXTERNAL_KHR. Support for VK_QUEUE_FAMILY_FOREIGN_EXT is more restrictive.

- Applications should expect transitions to/from VK_QUEUE_FAMILY_FOREIGN_EXT to be more expensive than transitions to/from VK_QUEUE_FAMILY_EXTERNAL_KHR.

## New Enum Constants

- `VK_EXT_QUEUE_FAMILY_FOREIGN_EXTENSION_NAME`

- `VK_EXT_QUEUE_FAMILY_FOREIGN_SPEC_VERSION`

- VK_QUEUE_FAMILY_FOREIGN_EXT

## Version History

- Revision 1, 2017-11-01 (Lina Versace)

  - Squashed internal revisions

## See Also

No cross-references are available

## Document Notes

For more information, see the Vulkan Specification.

This page is a generated document. Fixes and changes should be made to the generator scripts, not directly.

## Copyright

Copyright 2014-2026 The Khronos Group Inc.

SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-4.0