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How to Use Vulkan Debug Printf

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Blog Intermediate

Tony Barbour

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Description

A LunarG blog guide by Tony Barbour (updated February 2026) on using Vulkan Debug Printf to log values from shaders during development.

It shows GL_EXT_debug_printf in GLSL, printf in HLSL or Slang, and NonSemantic.DebugPrintf in SPIR-V, then viewing output in RenderDoc or Validation Layers via environment presets and vkconfig. Format-string rules, vector specifiers, descriptor-set and memory limits, and minimum SDK, API, and RenderDoc versions are listed.

Aimed at intermediate Vulkan shader authors who need per-invocation inspection beyond pixel picking. Basic glslang, dxc, or slangc use is assumed.

The free HTML article includes copyable snippets and configurator notes, paired with Willems samples and LunarG presets.

It helps debug divergent shader values without standing up a full GPU debugger workflow for every question.