Is there any way to enable extensions or features after an instance/device is created?

Question

I'm doing some wrapper job with Vulkan, to make the API more safe, and I wondered if I can create an instance or device first, and enable extensions or features later.

First, according to the spec:

VUID-VkDeviceCreateInfo-pProperties-04451

If the VK_KHR_portability_subset extension is included in pProperties of vkEnumerateDeviceExtensionProperties, ppEnabledExtensionNames must include "VK_KHR_portability_subset"

This looks fine, but notice that to enable VK_KHR_portability_subset extension on a device, you must enable its dependency VK_KHR_get_physical_device_properties2, which is an instance extension. This makes the fact that an instance must enable VK_KHR_get_physical_device_properties2 anyway in case the 04451 will check when a device is creating.

Secondly, it will be convenient to enable features later, for example if a user passed some parameter in, which requires some features, I can implicitly enable them for this user.

Answer 1

Features and extensions are specified at creation time. They're an innate part of the instance or device from that point forward. They cannot be modified later.

You can create new instances or devices. But you can't change existing ones.