PIX on Windows

Critical path analysis in Timing Captures

December 14, 2021 Dec 14, 2021 12/14/21

Steven Pratschner

The 2201.24 version of PIX on Windows includes a new feature that uses the CPU context switch data collected during a Timing Capture to compute the critical path for a selected PIX event. The critical path is the series of events and thread dependencies that, if shortened, would reduce the overall duration of the selected event. As an ...

Improving PIX, thanks to your feedback!

December 6, 2021 Dec 6, 2021 12/6/21

Jacques van Rhyn

Thanks to everyone who took the time to answer the PIX on Windows survey we sent out! It’s been awesome for us to see the sheer number of responses that came in from people all over the industry who care about our product – it’s because of you that we’re constantly striving to create a premium debugging and profiling experience on ...

PIX 2108.18: New programmatic capture APIs and much more

August 19, 2021 Aug 19, 2021 08/19/21

Austin Kinross

Today we released PIX on Windows version 2108.18, which can be downloaded here. We have also released a new version of WinPixEventRuntime, available here. This release has a lot of new features, including: This release also includes a new Visual C++ Redistributable that may request a reboot during ...

File IO profiling support for archive files

August 13, 2021 Aug 13, 2021 08/13/21

Steven Pratschner

The August release of PIX on Windows adds file io profiling support for archive files to Timing Captures.  This new feature allows Timing Captures to identify which individual assets are being read out of archive files such as .zip or .pak. If the File Accesses checkbox is selected before starting a Timing Capture, PIX will collect data on...

PIX survey – we want to hear from you!

August 9, 2021 Aug 9, 2021 08/9/21

Jacques van Rhyn

Are you building games with DirectX 12 on Windows? We want to hear from you! Check out aka.ms/pixsurvey This survey will influence where the PIX team will make our future feature investments and help us better understand which pain points we need to address first. We also hope to better understand whether our past investments had the ...

New File IO-related counters in the Timing Capture Metrics View

July 6, 2021 Jul 6, 2021 07/6/21

Steven Pratschner

The 2107.01 release of PIX on Windows adds drive bandwidth counters to the Metrics view in Timing Captures.  These new counters, along with the existing drive utilization counters and the ability to view data on all file accesses, helps give you a clear picture of how file io is impacting title performance. To collect the counters and the ...

Symbol loading improvements to PIX Timing Captures

July 6, 2021 Jul 6, 2021 07/6/21

Steven Pratschner

Have you ever opened a Timing Capture only to realize you hadn't configured your symbol path correctly?  The good news is that PIX has long had the ability to process symbols after the fact.  The bad news is that you had to close and reopen the capture (after fixing up your symbol path) to trigger PIX to reload the symbols. A small, but ...

PIX 2107.01: GPU Event List Navigation Aids and Column Statistics

June 30, 2021 Jun 30, 2021 06/30/21

Jeff Noyle

WinPIX version 2017.01 features several ease-of-use features that improve navigation on the GPU event list. Filter masks let you exclude subsets so you can focus on what you want. The new event path explorer navigates through the event hierarchy. There's a new search bar. Finally, column statistics summarize counters for you.

CPU Sample collection issue fixed in a recent Windows Update

June 10, 2021 Jun 10, 2021 06/10/21

Steven Pratschner

Several people have reported that CPU samples were not showing up in Timing Captures starting a few months ago.  This ended up being an issue with Windows Defender that has been fixed in a Windows servicing update that was released earlier this week.  A description of the fix and how to verify that you've received it is available on the ...

Timing Capture Sampling Profiler video

May 6, 2021 May 6, 2021 05/6/21

Steven Pratschner

I recently posted a new video to the PIX on Windows YouTube channel that describes some of the features in the Sampling Profiler in Timing Captures.  This video shows how to use CPU samples to analyze CPU performance in portions of your title that aren't sufficiently instrumented with PIX events. As always, use the feedback button in the ...