PIX on Windows

Usability improvements to the Timing Capture Metrics View

April 22, 2021 Apr 22, 2021 04/22/21

Steven Pratschner

The 2104.20 release of PIX on Windows includes several usability improvements to the Metrics View in Timing Captures.  These usability improvements make it easier to manage the set of metrics that are currently graphed.  Metrics analysis is also improved through the ability to customize the minimum and maximum values for the y-axis for each...

New CPU Sampling Profiler C++ Source Code View

April 22, 2021 Apr 22, 2021 04/22/21

Steven Pratschner

Starting with the 2104.20 release of PIX on Windows, the Sampling Profiler that is built into Timing Captures includes a C++ source code view. The source view uses coloring to attribute the collected CPU samples with source lines, thereby identifying the hot spots within a function. The source view is available when viewing Sampled ...

Tips & Tricks: How the Pros Use PIX to Make Their Games Better on Xbox and Windows

April 20, 2021 Apr 20, 2021 04/20/21

Morgan Grobin

Today, you may have caught the PIX session titled "Tips & Tricks: How the Pros Use PIX to Make Their Games Better on Xbox and Windows" at Microsoft's Game Stack Live. If you haven't seen it yet, it's available on demand through the Game Stack Live website, and will air twice more before the end of the GSL event. This blog post contains ...

PIX 2104.20: DirectX 12 Agility SDK Support, New Occupancy Graphs, Timing Capture Improvements

April 20, 2021 Apr 20, 2021 04/20/21

Morgan Grobin

Today we released PIX version 2104.20 - adding support for all new DirectX 12 Agility SDK features including Shader Model 6.6. This release adds support for DXCompiler Slim PDBs, adds new occupancy graphs for supported GPUs, and includes an experimental feature that allows you to attach to a running process for GPU capture.

PIX 2103.16: Recently Launched Apps, Environment Variables, Camera Improvements in the Mesh Viewer

March 18, 2021 Mar 18, 2021 03/18/21

Morgan Grobin

PIX 2103.10 was released today. This release adds new options to the app launch process, including launch history and the ability to set environment variables. We've added multi-cam support to the mesh viewer, and other bugfixes. Read the blog to learn more!

PIX Timing Captures require full PDBs

February 26, 2021 Feb 26, 2021 02/26/21

Steven Pratschner

PIX Timing Captures require a title’s PDBs to be generated using the /DEBUG:FULL linker switch. PDBs generated with the /DEBUG:FASTLINK linker switch are not sufficient. Note that, depending on the version of Visual Studio you are using, the linker switch /DEBUG specified without the FULL or FASTLINK option, may default to FASTLINK...

Finding memory leaks using Timing Captures

February 23, 2021 Feb 23, 2021 02/23/21

Steven Pratschner

PIX Timing Captures include several analysis features aimed at making it easy to find memory leaks in your title.  These features, coupled with the ability to take captures for extended periods of time, are a compelling combination for finding leaks, even those that can take a considerable amount of time to manifest themselves. To enable ...

WinPixEventRuntime 2102.09: Minor fixes and optimizations

February 16, 2021 Feb 16, 2021 02/16/21

Matt Amert

It’s hard to believe it’s been over a year since our last update to WinPixEventRuntime! This update brings a couple of minor fixes and optimizations, which should hopefully lead to a slightly better quality of life when using the runtime 😊 You can download the new runtime here. Release notes: Fixed a bug where PIX could...

Filtering CPU Samples by one or more PIX Events

February 3, 2021 Feb 3, 2021 02/3/21

Steven Pratschner

The Sampling Profiler included in the 2101.27 release of PIX on Windows includes a novel new feature that allows you to filter the analysis of CPU samples down to just those samples that were collected during the time when one or more PIX events was running.  This capability is particularly useful for seeing which functions ran the most ...

Function Summary and Callgraph captures are now deprecated

February 1, 2021 Feb 1, 2021 02/1/21

Steven Pratschner

Function Summary and Callgraph captures are deprecated starting with the 2102.27 release of PIX on Windows. The workflows supported by these legacy capture types have been replaced with enhancements we're recently made to the Sampling Profiler that is part of Timing Captures.  These enhancements include the ability to group the tree of ...