What does the "ReadOnlySpan<byte> debugNameUtf8" do in CommandBuffer.BeginRenderPass(...)?

Unity Engine
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1

I am trying to update my SRP to Unity6 and as I do so I moved some things to CommandBuffer, namely BeginRenderPass. But unlike the ScriptableRenderContext it has an extra argument ReadOnlySpan<byte> debugNameUtf8. I set it to a string but it doesnt show up anywhere (profiler and frame debuger). It isnt even listed in the parameters section! So what does it do?

Also as a side note, what is the differance between ScriptableRenderContext.BeginRenderPass(…) and CommandBuffer.BeginRenderPass(…) routes?

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Bumping the thread because I am still curious*

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I found a commit in the Graphics repo that might explain this:

At the end of the commit message:

  • [PassCommandBuffer] Merged pass names are sent to native engine for BeginRenderPass error handling only in dev build and editor mode. Also, we don’t generate anymore a dynamic string as an intermediary container of string information before sending it from managed to unmanaged memory.

Generally, strings in C# are UTF-16 (ReadOnlySpan<char>) while C and C++ use UTF-8 (ReadOnlySpan<byte>). If you wanted to give the renderpass a debug name, this may allow you to provide one in UTF-8 instead of letting Unity create one.

I assume providing debugNameUtf8 will let you see that name in external profilers like RenderDoc.