Enabling GPU Features

Some GPU capabilities, such as timestamp queries or subgroup operations, must be explicitly requested before use. TypeGPU passes your configuration directly to the WebGPU API, with a convenient extension for marking features as optional.

Tip

For a complete list of feature names, consult the WebGPU specification.

Requesting features

When initializing TypeGPU, include requiredFeatures and/or optionalFeatures in the device descriptor:

const root = await tgpu.init({
  adapter: {
    powerPreference: 'high-performance',
  },
  device: {
    // These features must be supported or initialization will fail
    requiredFeatures: [
      'timestamp-query',
      'subgroup-operations',
    ],
    // These features will be enabled if available; missing ones are ignored
    optionalFeatures: [
      'shader-f16',
    ],
  },
  // …other TypeGPU options…
});

• requiredFeatures: GPUFeatureName[] All listed features must be supported by the GPU; otherwise requestDevice() rejects.

• optionalFeatures: GPUFeatureName[] The GPU will enable supported features and ignore unsupported ones without error.

Verifying availability

After tgpu.init() resolves, you can check which features are enabled using the enabledFeatures property on the root object:

if (root.enabledFeatures.has('timestamp-query')) {
  console.log('Timestamp queries are available');
}
if (root.enabledFeatures.has('subgroup-operations')) {
  console.log('Subgroup operations are enabled');
}