Known Issues
If you are hitting a problem that isn’t listed below, then please contact us via the “Send Feedback’ button in the top-right corner of the PIX UI, or chat with us on the #pix channel on the DirectX Discord.
PIX Issues
Issue: app crashes when trying to launch it for PIX GPU Capture
Status: Fixed in PIX 2408.05 or later.
Explanation: The MSVC team introduced a breaking change to the MSVC libraries related to std::mutex’s destructor. If you are seeing crashes at capture time in this area then this issue is likely to be the cause.
Issue: playback output (e.g. backbuffer contents) doesn’t match capture-time output
Status: Active ⚠️ (has workaround for a lot of cases)
Explanation: This is commonly caused by ExecuteIndirect non-determinism. By default, PIX will snap a copy of your capture-time ExecuteIndirect argument buffers and use those to perform your ExecuteIndirects at replay time. This works for older applications, but in recent years it has started causing problems for applications that generate their argument buffers non-deterministically (e.g. during a GPU culling pass). It’s particularly problematic if the argument buffers are generated at the same time as other types of buffers and the application expects the buffers to be consistent with each other: at replay time, PIX will use the capture-time copy of the argument buffer but the replay-time copy of the other buffer, and bad things may happen.
Workaround: Click Home->Settings in PIX, check the “Use replay-time ExecuteIndirect argument buffers (experimental)” box, and reopen your capture file.
If you continue to hit problems after the setting this checkbox, then please contact us and we will be eager to investigate.
Issue: Race Condition when your application uses dbghelp.dll
Status: Active ⚠️
Problem: Your application may hang/crash if uses dbghelp.dll and is running under PIX GPU Capture. dbghelp.dll is not thread-safe, and so if both PIX and your application are trying to use it on different threads, sporadic errors or crashes can happen inside dbghelp.dll.
Workaround: The only workaround is to avoid using dbghelp.dll altogether when PIX is attached
Issue: PIX doesn’t work on my HoloLens
Status: Active ⚠️ (known cause has workaround)
Workaround: Please use PIX version 2308.30 with your HoloLens.
Driver Issues
In general we recommend using the latest available driver for your GPU. In the future, we will update this page with any exceptions to this guidance.
Issue: PIX fails to create D3D12 device on Qualcomm GPUs running some drivers
Status: Active ⚠️
Workaround: create C:\data\test\bin directory on the affected device
Issue: errors collecting timing data on Intel
Status: Active ⚠️ (has workaround, Intel working on fix)
Affected devices: Intel Lunar Lake GPUs running recent drivers with Hardware Scheduling enabled
Problem: While collecting timing data in PIX, you may hit errors such as “Timing Data Error”, “ETW history buffer submissions weren’t received in chronological order” or similar errors.
Workaround: Disable Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling in the Settings app on your PC, restart your PC, and launch PIX again.
Issue: errors collecting timing data on NVIDIA
Status: Active ⚠️ (has workaround, NVIDIA working on fix)
Affected devices: NVIDIA GPUs running recent drivers with Hardware Scheduling enabled
Problem: While collecting timing data in PIX, you may hit errors such as “Timing Data Error”, “Not enough ETW passes were completed” or similar errors.
Workaround: Disable Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling in the Settings app on your PC, restart your PC, and launch PIX again.
Issue: error starting analysis on AMD (“PIX was unable to create a D3D12 device”)
Status: Active ⚠️ (has workaround, AMD are working on a fix)
Problem: There are at least two known causes for this issue:
- If you have two AMD GPUs in your PC, both enabled, and you start analysis on the secondary GPU.
- To work around this, please use the primary GPU or please disable the primary GPU in Device Manager.
- If you have two open GPU Capture files (either in the same instance of PIX or in separate instances), you start analysis on one of them and then you start analysis on the other one without closing the first one.
- To work around this, please close the first capture file before starting analysis on the second one.
- Note that stopping analysis on the first GPU Capture file is not sufficient. You must close the capture file.
Issue: crash on AMD while collecting High Frequency Counters
Status: Active ⚠️ (AMD are working on a fix)
Problem: On AMD, collecting High Frequency Counters will fail and/or crash after collecting Debug Layer Warnings in PIX.
Other Issues
Issue: application hangs while running under GPU Capture
Status: Has known workaround (avoid connecting/disconnecting via remote desktop, or terminate and restart your application.)
Affected devices: Remote Desktop
Problem: Your application may hang if it is running under PIX GPU Capture on a PC that you have connected to via Remote Desktop, and you disconnect from that Remote Desktop session while the application is running.