Operations recorded in command buffers and submitted to queues are processed by the hardware. Processing is performed in a series of steps that form a pipeline. When we want to perform mathematical calculations, we use a compute pipeline. If we want to draw anything, we need a graphics pipeline.
Pipeline objects control the way in which geometry is drawn or computations are performed. They manage the behavior of the hardware on which our application is executed. And they are one of the biggest and most apparent differences between Vulkan and OpenGL. OpenGL used a state machine. It allowed us to change many rendering or computing parameters whenever we wanted. We could set up the state, activate a shader program, draw a geometry, then activate another shader program and draw another geometry. In Vulkan it is not possible because the whole rendering or computing state is stored in a single, monolithical...
