DirectX11 - CreateInputLayout() Vertex shader linkage problem

Question

I keep getting the same error every time, I really have tried everything to fix the problem but it's still not working. Basically I'd like to draw a simple cube.

The error(s):

D3D11 ERROR: ID3D11DeviceContext::Draw: Input Assembler - Vertex Shader linkage error: Signatures between stages are incompatible. The input stage requires Semantic/Index (COLOR,0) as input, but it is not provided by the output stage. [ EXECUTION ERROR #342: DEVICE_SHADER_LINKAGE_SEMANTICNAME_NOT_FOUND]
D3D11 ERROR: ID3D11DeviceContext::Draw: Input Assembler - Vertex Shader linkage error: Signatures between stages are incompatible. The input stage requires Semantic/Index (TEXCOORD,0) as input, but it is not provided by the output stage. [ EXECUTION ERROR #342: DEVICE_SHADER_LINKAGE_SEMANTICNAME_NOT_FOUND]
D3D11 ERROR: ID3D11DeviceContext::Draw: Input Assembler - Vertex Shader linkage error: Signatures between stages are incompatible. The input stage requires Semantic/Index (SV_Position,0) as input, but it is not provided by the output stage. [ EXECUTION ERROR #342: DEVICE_SHADER_LINKAGE_SEMANTICNAME_NOT_FOUND]

The vertex shader, pos.hlsl:

float4 main(float3 pos : POSITION) : SV_POSITION
{
    float4 finalPos = { pos.x, pos.y, pos.z, 1.0f };

    return finalPos;
}

The vertex layout:

const D3D11_INPUT_ELEMENT_DESC d[] =
    {
        { "POSITION", 0, DXGI_FORMAT_R32G32B32_FLOAT, 0, 0, D3D11_INPUT_PER_VERTEX_DATA, 0 }
    };

struct Vertex
    {
        XMFLOAT3 poz;
    };

The actual code:

Vertex vertex_list[] =
{
    { XMFLOAT3{-1.0f, -1.0f, -1.0f} },
    { XMFLOAT3{-1.0f, +1.0f, -1.0f} },
    { XMFLOAT3{+1.0f, +1.0f, -1.0f} },
    { XMFLOAT3{+1.0f, -1.0f, -1.0f} },
    { XMFLOAT3{-1.0f, -1.0f, +1.0f} },
    { XMFLOAT3{-1.0f, +1.0f, +1.0f} },
    { XMFLOAT3{+1.0f, +1.0f, +1.0f} },
    { XMFLOAT3{+1.0f, -1.0f, +1.0f} }
};

/* First, setup the vertex buffer */
D3D11_BUFFER_DESC o;
o.ByteWidth = sizeof(Vertex) * ARRAYSIZE(vertex_list);
o.Usage = D3D11_USAGE_IMMUTABLE;
o.BindFlags = D3D11_BIND_VERTEX_BUFFER;
o.CPUAccessFlags = 0;
o.MiscFlags = NULL;
o.StructureByteStride = 0;

D3D11_SUBRESOURCE_DATA d;
d.pSysMem = vertex_list;

if FAILED(pRenderer->GetDevice()->CreateBuffer(
    &o,
    &d,
    &m_pBuffer
))
    return R_BUFFER_ERROR;

/* Now, setup the vertex layout */
long size = pFileManager->ReadShaderFile("pos.cso", m_bytes);

if FAILED(m_pD3DDevice->CreateInputLayout(
    d,
    ARRAYSIZE(d),
    m_bytes,
    size,
    &m_pInputLayout
))
    return R_SETUP_VERTEX_LAYOUT;

m_pD3DKontekst->IASetInputLayout(m_pInputLayout);

Then I'm using m_pD3DContext->Draw() to draw the scene. Nothing shows up, just the usual gray background color using ClearRenderTargetView()

Thanks a lot for any help.

Answer 1

These errors are telling you that you have the wrong vertex shader set when you issue your draw calls.

If we look at the errors and break them down, it can assist in finding the cause.

First of all, the errors all start with this:

Input Assembler - Vertex Shader linkage error

This tells us that the problem is with passing data from the Input Assembler (IA) stage to the Vertex Shader (VS) stage, which is confirmed by the next part:

Signatures between stages are incompatible.

The error then goes on to tell us what data formats the input stage expects (lower-case 'i' here; in this case the input stage is the Vertex Shader, because it's the one which the data is going to). Based on the content of the errors we can reconstruct this signature. So, the errors in full are:

The input stage requires Semantic/Index (COLOR,0) as input...
The input stage requires Semantic/Index (TEXCOORD,0) as input...
The input stage requires Semantic/Index (SV_Position,0) as input...

Meaning that somewhere in your code, you have a vertex shader that looks something like this:

struct VS_INPUT
{
    float4 Position : SV_Position;
    float2 Texcoord : TEXCOORD;
    float4 Color : COLOR;
};

VS_OUTPUT MyVertexShader (VS_INPUT vs_in)
{
    ...

And that's the shader that's active when you issue your draw calls.

In order to track this down, you can begin as follows:

• Check your IASetInputLayout call and make sure that it has the input layout you intend when issuing your draw calls.
• Check your VSSetShader call and make sure that it has the vertex shader you intend when issuing your draw calls.
• Make sure that the contents of your "pos.cso" file are what you think they are (and likewise for any other .cso files you use).
• Make sure that your shaders and input layouts are all compiled/created successfully.

If this is modified tutorial code then it's possible that any of the above may be at fault.

Answer 2

After struggling I found an answer: I was calling IASetInputLayout() only once (when initializing D3D11), and actually I needed to call it every frame. That's why I was seeing a colored cube for a fraction of a second just before all these errors came up.