Why can't I get a bool packed and aligned into a D3D constant buffer?

Question

Alright, I'm having a hard time getting a bool packed and aligned into a hlsl constant buffer and I'm not sure why.

Here is the buffer in hlsl

cbuffer MaterialBuffer : register(b1) {
    float3 materialDiffuseAlbedo;
    float  materialSpecularExponent;
    float3 materialSpecularAlbedo;
    bool isTextured;
};

And here it is in c++

struct GeometryBufferPass_MaterialBuffer {
    XMFLOAT3 diffuse;
    float specularExponent;
    XMFLOAT3 specular;
    bool isTextured;
};

I've tried moving the bool and padding the struct in all kinds of ways with no luck. What is the correct way to do this?

Answer 1

For efficiency, constant buffers will be mapped such that values do not straddle GPU registers. Each register is four floats in size (16 bytes) so constant buffer structures must be a multiple thereof on the GPU. Your C++ structure should be padded accordingly if you want to use it as a convenience for mapping data (this, note, doesn't always scale well).

Your issue, then, is that an HLSL boolean is four bytes, but one byte on the CPU side (in your specific implementation). This causes your C++ structure to not align properly: the significant bit of a boolean value (the 0 or 1 that matters) is going to be stored in the least-signficant byte of the value, and since the sizes don't agree the location of that byte in memory will differ in the CPU and GPU versions of the structure.

Manually inserting the appropriate padding and ensuring proper 16-byte alignment, or just using an appropriately-sized type, like an integer, should fix the issue. This thread may also be of use to you as it contains a more in-depth discussion of roughly the same problem.

Answer 2

Alright, did some reading and noticed that a hlsl bool is essentially a 32 bit integer. So I just used an int in the c++ struct to solve my problem.

struct GeometryBufferPass_MaterialBuffer {
    XMFLOAT3 diffuse;
    float specularExponent;
    XMFLOAT3 specular;
    int isTextured;
};