PIX on Windows
Performance tuning and debugging for DirectX 12 games on Windows
Latest posts
Symbol loading improvements to PIX Timing Captures
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 incredibly useful new feature has been added to Timing Captures in the 2107.01 release of PIX on Windows: the ability to reload symbols without having to close and reopen the capture. If you make changes to your symbol path settings while a Timing Capture is open, use the Re...
PIX 2107.01: GPU Event List Navigation Aids and Column Statistics
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
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 Visual Studio community site. If you have the required update and are still seeing this issue, please let us know! Steven.
Timing Capture Sampling Profiler video
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 upper right corner of the PIX UI to get in touch with us to report bugs, request features, and so on. Steven.
Converting previous versions of Timing Captures
In some releases of PIX, the Timing Capture file format must be changed as new features are added. Such a format change was made in the 2104.20 release of PIX on Windows. If you attempt to open a capture that contains an older file format, a dialog will be displayed with the following text: Please use the Convert menu to migrate this capture file to the latest version. This capture file was created with an older version of PIX and is no longer supported To convert the capture, select the Convert menu under the Home tab. Enter the name of the old Timing Capture in the Source File field or use the browse ...
Usability improvements to the Timing Capture Metrics View
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 metric. These usability improvements are provided by a new Active Metrics panel. This new panel lists all metrics that have been added to the graph from either the Selector panel or the Timeline view. The table of graphed metrics includes a checkbox that can be used to tog...
New CPU Sampling Profiler C++ Source Code View
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 Functions in the Range Details view. To view the annotated source for a function, select the function in the Range Details view and toggle the Element Details view from Details to Source Analysis as shown in the following figure. The boldness of the highlight on a given sour...
Tips & Tricks: How the Pros Use PIX to Make Their Games Better on Xbox and Windows
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 links to all of the content mentioned in the talk, and will be updated with any common questions that arise throughout the conference. PIX Documentation Download PIX DirectX Discord DirectX 12 Twitter DirectX 12 Youtube Channel PIX on Windows at Dir...
PIX 2104.20: DirectX 12 Agility SDK Support, New Occupancy Graphs, Timing Capture Improvements
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.