hlsl extension holds High Level Shading Language ( HLSL) source code. To conform to Microsoft convention, use these file extensions for your shader code: Compiling at build time to header files.Compiling at build time to object files.Let's now look at various ways to compile your shader code and conventions for file extensions for shader code. But when you include byte code in a header, you can reduce code complexity and simplify shader creation. You also force all byte code to reside in memory even after the shader is created, which wastes resources. If you include a large amount of byte code in a header, you increase the size and the initial load time of your app. The compile method that you use typically depends on the size of your HLSL shader source file.

For more info about HLSL property pages, see HLSL Property Pages. How the HLSL code compiler compiles each shader source file in your project depends on how you specify the Ouput Files property for that file.

Microsoft Visual Studio can compile shader code from *.hlsl and *.fx files that you include in your C++ project.Īs part of the build process, Visual Studio uses the fxc.exe or dxc.exe HLSL code compiler to compile the HLSL shader source files into binary shader object files or into byte arrays that are defined in header files. Visual Studio will use DXC.EXE automatically when Shader Model 6 is selected for the HLSL Property Page configuration. For Shader Model 6, you use DXC.EXE instead, which is documented in Using dxc.exe and dxcompiler.dll. This topic covers the FXC.EXE compiler used for Shader Models 2 through 5.1.

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