An NGG passthrough program on the vertex path whose s_barrier only orders wave 0's GS_ALLOC_REQ produced a workgroup OpControlBarrier, which the Vertex execution model does not allow; SPIR-V validation rejected the module at the program's first draw. In a Vertex-stage program the barrier now emits nothing when the program has no LDS or GDS access and no memory write or atomic, so no wave can observe another. With any of those it throws.