| January 2, 2010 12:00 AM PST | |
Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel® GPA) FAQ
Table of Contents
General Product Information
Product Support
General Product Information
Q: What is Intel® GPA, and why would I want to use it?
A: Intel® GPA is a powerful, agile tool suite enabling game developers to utilize the full performance potential of the PC gaming platform, including (though not limited to) Intel® CoreTM and Intel® HD Graphics. Intel GPA visualizes performance data from your application, allowing you to understand where in the system and in individual frames cycles are being spent, and enabling you to perform 'what-if' experiments to estimate potential performance gains from optimizations.
Q: What platforms can I use for running Intel® GPA?
A: The Intel® GPA tools analyze games on PC systems running Microsoft Windows* operating systems, specifically Microsoft Windows* 7 (both 32-bit and 64-bit) and Microsoft Windows Vista* (both 32-bit and 64-bit). The game or media application to be analyzed must use one of the following Microsoft DirectX* API's: Microsoft DirectX* 9/9EX, Microsoft DirectX* 10/10.1, Microsoft DirectX* 11, or the Intel® Media SDK.
Q: What's the cost of the product?
A: The product is available at no charge to members of Intel's Visual Adrenaline Developer Program. To download Intel® GPA and register for Visual Adrenaline membership, use this link. For more information on membership in this free program, visit the Visual Adrenaline Home Page.
Q: How does Intel® GPA compare with other Intel products such as Intel® VTuneTM Performance Analyzer and Intel® Parallel Studio, and how do I select the right one for my analysis/optimization needs?
A: Intel® GPA is complementary to other Intel tools focused on the optimization phase of game development. Intel GPA can help determine whether potential performance bottlenecks exist, and then analyze and perform "what if" experiments to help optimize the graphics portion of your application. If the bottlenecks are caused by CPU issues, then the other Intel tools focused on development and debug phases can help pinpoint those performance bottlenecks and optimize your application for the CPU. Refer to this article for information which will help you select which product may be best for your specific analysis needs.
Q: What are the key advantages of Intel® GPA?
A: Intel has worked extensively with game developers to create a product that precisely meets their needs, so they can quickly optimize games. The key advantages of using Intel® GPA are:
Using Intel® GPA
Q: How do I start using Intel® GPA?
A: It's pretty easy to get started with Intel® GPA -- most game developers start using Intel GPA immediately after installing the package, since Intel GPA uses standard graphics drivers and doesn't require modifications to your game code (one exception is if you're trying to perform thread-based analysis with the Intel® GPA Platform Analyzer, which requires that you add some code to designate individual threads). To get you up and running quickly, check out the Intel® GPA Quick Start Guide, which shows you how to run the main features of the product.
Q: How difficult is it to learn how to use the product?
A: The Intel® GPA product features an intuitive user interface that does not require extensive training to quickly access key performance metrics. Therefore, many users are able to realize the benefits of Intel GPA very quickly. However, as the product allows you to perform precise analysis and experiments for every portion of the rendering pipeline, users with a detailed knowledge of Microsoft DirectX* will be more readily able to utilize these advanced options within Intel GPA.
Q: What kinds of problems can Intel® GPA find?
A: If you have performance "hot spots" within your game, Intel® GPA can help pinpoint them either at the system level, at the frame or sub-frame level, or by visualizing task performance across the CPU/GPU. Once you've identified issues, Intel GPA can let you try different experiments to see the resulting changes in the rendering time as well as the corresponding visual effect of these changes. The benefit is that Intel GPA can help improve your frame rate and/or allow you to add new visual effects, while still providing an acceptable level of user interactivity.
Q: How do the Intel® GPA System Analyzer HUD and Intel® GPA Frame Analyzer help identify optimization opportunities in my game?
A: The Intel® GPA System Analyzer HUD and stand-alone System Analyzer application provides access to system-wide metrics for your game, including CPU, GPU, Microsoft DirectX*, and the graphics driver. Within the Intel GPA System Analyzer you perform various "what-if" experiments to diagnose at a high level where your game's performance bottlenecks are concentrated. If the Intel GPA System Analyzer shows your game to be CPU-bound, perform additional fine-tuning of your application using one of the other Intel performance optimization products such as Intel® Parallel Studio or Intel® VTuneTM Amplifier XE Performance Profiler. If the performance bottlenecks are found to be within the GPU, the Intel® GPA Frame Analyzer allows you to drill down within a single graphics frame to pinpoint specific rendering problems, such as texture bandwidth, pixel shader performance, level-of-detail issues, or other bottlenecks within each portion of the rendering pipeline. For example, using the "simple pixel shader" you can determine what portion of the rendering time is being spent within the shaders; editing the shaders within the Intel GPA Frame Analyzer itself you can determine whether using a modified shader will achieve a faster rendering time with acceptable visual quality.
Q: How does the Intel® GPA Platform Analyzer help identify optimization opportunities in my game?
A: The Intel® GPA Platform Analyzer visualizes the execution profile of the tasks in your code on the entire PC platform over time on both the CPU and GPU. This helps you understand task-based issues within your game, allowing you to optimize the compute and rendering tasks across both the CPU and GPU. The Intel GPA Platform Analyzer uses trace data collected during the application run to provide a detailed analysis of how your code executes across all threads, and correlates the CPU workload with that on the GPU.
Q: Though Intel® GPA seems to be targeting game developers, will Intel GPA work with other graphics applications?
A: Intel® GPA was specifically developed to meet the needs of game developers. However, the features of Intel GPA could be used to analyze the performance of other visual computing applications. In other words, our expectation is that anyone developing graphics applications, both "expert" and "novice" alike, should be able to take advantage of the analysis and optimization capabilities of the product.
Q: Do I have to modify the software for my game, or install special drivers, in order to be able to use Intel® GPA?
A: For both the Intel® GPA System Analyzer HUD and the Intel® GPA Frame Analyzer, these tools can analyze your game without any code modifications or special libraries. This is possible because Intel GPA accesses the CPU, driver, DX, and GPU metrics directly from the game environment, a big plus for common analysis tasks. For more complex, task-based analysis with the Intel® GPA Platform Analyzer, you will benefit by inserting API calls that tag the various tasks in your game code -- but you'll just have to do this once, as the ITT API used by Intel® GPA is also used by a number of other Intel performance analysis tools.
Technical Requirements
Q: What are the Intel® GPA system requirements?
A: Intel® GPA requires a PC with a 2Ghz or faster processor; 2GB of system memory is required (though 4GB is recommended, especially for 64-bit systems), and 512MB of video RAM is required. Intel® GPA also requires the Microsoft Windows* 7 OS (32-bit or 64-bit), or Microsoft Windows Vista* OS (32-bit or 64-bit). The game or graphics application must use one of the following Microsoft DirectX* API's: 9/9EX, 10.0/10.1, or 11.0. In order to use the Media Performance feature of Intel GPA, your application needs to use Intel® Processor Graphics on a 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ Processor.
Q: What graphics devices does Intel® GPA support?
A: Intel® GPA supports the Intel® G45 Express Chipset, the Mobile Intel® GM45 Express Chipset, and Intel® HD graphics (including the latest generation, Intel® HD Graphics 2000/3000). However, while Intel does not test or support the use of Intel GPA on non-Intel graphics or older generations of Intel chipsets with processor graphics, the tools do not block or otherwise prevent the product's use on these other configurations.
Q: Does Intel® GPA work with netbook computers?
A: Yes, Intel® GPA supports many popular netbook computers. In particular, the product supports Atom-based netbooks configured with either the Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950 or Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 3150 graphics chipsets.
Intel® Graphics Checker
Product Support
Q: How do I get support for Intel® GPA?
A: The primary support model for Intel® GPA is through the product's Support Forum and Knowledge Base articles. At the Support Forum you can ask questions about the product, share your experiences with other users of the product, and ask for assistance should you encounter issues when using Intel GPA. The Knowledge Base contains various technical notes, "tips & tricks", training material, and pointers to other information that may be of interest to both novice and experienced users alike.
Q: Will Intel® GPA support all future Intel graphics devices?
A: Intel intends to continue offering the tools that allow developers to take the best advantage of Intel graphics devices, both now and into the future. We will continue to identify, with close cooperation from developers, the best tools to enable optimization and performance of these devices.
Q: What should I expect to see if I attempt to run Intel® GPA on non-supported graphics devices?
A: Features and performance will vary based upon the hardware capabilities of these other configurations. For example, on non-supported devices the Intel® GPA System Analyzer HUD is not able to show metrics gathered from the GPU (such as pixel draw rate), but most of the Intel® GPA Frame Analyzer functions should work on any graphics device, since Intel GPA is a Microsoft DirectX* software performance tool.
Q: What is your plan for supporting OpenGL*?
A: We are actively exploring enhancing Intel® GPA to support OpenGL*. If you have specific OpenGL* needs or feature requests, we would love to hear from you at the Intel GPA Support Forum. Specific plans for this API will be announced at a later date.
Q: How do I submit suggestions or feedback to the development team?
A: Use the Intel® GPA Support Forum to submit suggestions on new features, and/or to comment on the features currently in the product.
* Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
Table of Contents
General Product Information
- What is Intel® GPA, and why would I want to use it?
- What platforms can I use for running Intel® GPA?
- What's the cost of the product?
- How does Intel® GPA compare with other Intel analysis products?
- What are the key advantages of Intel® GPA?
- Have developers been able to use Intel® GPA to improve the performance of "real world" games?
- Where do I find out more information about Intel® GPA?
- How do I start using Intel® GPA?
- How difficult is it to learn how to use the product?
- What kinds of problems can Intel® GPA find?
- How do the Intel GPA System Analyzer HUD and the Intel GPA Frame Analyzer help identify optimization opportunities in my game?
- How does the Intel® GPA Platform Analyzer help identify optimization opportunities in my game?
- Will Intel® GPA work with any graphics application?
- Do I have to modify the software for my game in order to be able to use Intel® GPA?
- What are the Intel® GPA system requirements?
- What graphics devices does Intel® GPA support?
- Does Intel® GPA work with netbook computers?
Product Support
- How do I get support for Intel® GPA?
- Will Intel® GPA support all future Intel graphics devices?
- What should I expect to see if I attempt to run Intel® GPA on third-party graphics devices?
- What is your plan for supporting OpenGL*?
- How do I submit suggestions or feedback to the development team?
General Product Information
Q: What is Intel® GPA, and why would I want to use it?
A: Intel® GPA is a powerful, agile tool suite enabling game developers to utilize the full performance potential of the PC gaming platform, including (though not limited to) Intel® CoreTM and Intel® HD Graphics. Intel GPA visualizes performance data from your application, allowing you to understand where in the system and in individual frames cycles are being spent, and enabling you to perform 'what-if' experiments to estimate potential performance gains from optimizations.
Q: What platforms can I use for running Intel® GPA?
A: The Intel® GPA tools analyze games on PC systems running Microsoft Windows* operating systems, specifically Microsoft Windows* 7 (both 32-bit and 64-bit) and Microsoft Windows Vista* (both 32-bit and 64-bit). The game or media application to be analyzed must use one of the following Microsoft DirectX* API's: Microsoft DirectX* 9/9EX, Microsoft DirectX* 10/10.1, Microsoft DirectX* 11, or the Intel® Media SDK.
Q: What's the cost of the product?
A: The product is available at no charge to members of Intel's Visual Adrenaline Developer Program. To download Intel® GPA and register for Visual Adrenaline membership, use this link. For more information on membership in this free program, visit the Visual Adrenaline Home Page.
Q: How does Intel® GPA compare with other Intel products such as Intel® VTuneTM Performance Analyzer and Intel® Parallel Studio, and how do I select the right one for my analysis/optimization needs?
A: Intel® GPA is complementary to other Intel tools focused on the optimization phase of game development. Intel GPA can help determine whether potential performance bottlenecks exist, and then analyze and perform "what if" experiments to help optimize the graphics portion of your application. If the bottlenecks are caused by CPU issues, then the other Intel tools focused on development and debug phases can help pinpoint those performance bottlenecks and optimize your application for the CPU. Refer to this article for information which will help you select which product may be best for your specific analysis needs.
Q: What are the key advantages of Intel® GPA?
A: Intel has worked extensively with game developers to create a product that precisely meets their needs, so they can quickly optimize games. The key advantages of using Intel® GPA are:
- Intuitive interface: Quickly find issues, without a lot of clutter; Intel GPA's easy workflow fits the way game developers want to optimize their games.
- In-depth, real-time analysis: Identify bottlenecks, experiment with changes, and see results in real time - all within Intel GPA and without modifying the game code.
- Intel® HD Graphics support: Optimize games and graphics-intensive applications for Intel systems utilizing processor graphics; when possible, Intel GPA accesses hardware metrics in these devices for more accurate measurements of the game's use of the rendering pipeline.
- Task timeline visualization: Using the Intel® GPA Platform Analyzer, see how your task system is balanced (or not) across multiple threads on both the CPU and GPU.
Q: Have developers been able to use Intel® GPA to improve the performance of "real world" games?
A: Many developers have utilized Intel® GPA to improve game performance on PC's utilizing Intel processor graphics. Many of these games can be found in the Game Gallery. Just a few examples of Intel GPA-enabled titles are Need For Speed:World *, DarkSpore*, LEGO Universe*, Civilization V*, Stalker:Call of Pripyat*, Demigod*, EmpireNapoleon:Total War*, and Ghostbusters, The Video Game*. The performance gains in these games resulted in an increased frame rate and/or additional game features that improved the user experience.
Q: Where do I find out more information about Intel® GPA?
A: To find out more about the Intel® GPA tool suite, visit the Intel GPA Home Page. The product's home site provides detailed information about the tool, including information on how to download the tool, training and support resources, and videos on the product to help you get started quickly.
Using Intel® GPA
Q: How do I start using Intel® GPA?
A: It's pretty easy to get started with Intel® GPA -- most game developers start using Intel GPA immediately after installing the package, since Intel GPA uses standard graphics drivers and doesn't require modifications to your game code (one exception is if you're trying to perform thread-based analysis with the Intel® GPA Platform Analyzer, which requires that you add some code to designate individual threads). To get you up and running quickly, check out the Intel® GPA Quick Start Guide, which shows you how to run the main features of the product.
Q: How difficult is it to learn how to use the product?
A: The Intel® GPA product features an intuitive user interface that does not require extensive training to quickly access key performance metrics. Therefore, many users are able to realize the benefits of Intel GPA very quickly. However, as the product allows you to perform precise analysis and experiments for every portion of the rendering pipeline, users with a detailed knowledge of Microsoft DirectX* will be more readily able to utilize these advanced options within Intel GPA.
Q: What kinds of problems can Intel® GPA find?
A: If you have performance "hot spots" within your game, Intel® GPA can help pinpoint them either at the system level, at the frame or sub-frame level, or by visualizing task performance across the CPU/GPU. Once you've identified issues, Intel GPA can let you try different experiments to see the resulting changes in the rendering time as well as the corresponding visual effect of these changes. The benefit is that Intel GPA can help improve your frame rate and/or allow you to add new visual effects, while still providing an acceptable level of user interactivity.
Q: How do the Intel® GPA System Analyzer HUD and Intel® GPA Frame Analyzer help identify optimization opportunities in my game?
A: The Intel® GPA System Analyzer HUD and stand-alone System Analyzer application provides access to system-wide metrics for your game, including CPU, GPU, Microsoft DirectX*, and the graphics driver. Within the Intel GPA System Analyzer you perform various "what-if" experiments to diagnose at a high level where your game's performance bottlenecks are concentrated. If the Intel GPA System Analyzer shows your game to be CPU-bound, perform additional fine-tuning of your application using one of the other Intel performance optimization products such as Intel® Parallel Studio or Intel® VTuneTM Amplifier XE Performance Profiler. If the performance bottlenecks are found to be within the GPU, the Intel® GPA Frame Analyzer allows you to drill down within a single graphics frame to pinpoint specific rendering problems, such as texture bandwidth, pixel shader performance, level-of-detail issues, or other bottlenecks within each portion of the rendering pipeline. For example, using the "simple pixel shader" you can determine what portion of the rendering time is being spent within the shaders; editing the shaders within the Intel GPA Frame Analyzer itself you can determine whether using a modified shader will achieve a faster rendering time with acceptable visual quality.
Q: How does the Intel® GPA Platform Analyzer help identify optimization opportunities in my game?
A: The Intel® GPA Platform Analyzer visualizes the execution profile of the tasks in your code on the entire PC platform over time on both the CPU and GPU. This helps you understand task-based issues within your game, allowing you to optimize the compute and rendering tasks across both the CPU and GPU. The Intel GPA Platform Analyzer uses trace data collected during the application run to provide a detailed analysis of how your code executes across all threads, and correlates the CPU workload with that on the GPU.
Q: Though Intel® GPA seems to be targeting game developers, will Intel GPA work with other graphics applications?
A: Intel® GPA was specifically developed to meet the needs of game developers. However, the features of Intel GPA could be used to analyze the performance of other visual computing applications. In other words, our expectation is that anyone developing graphics applications, both "expert" and "novice" alike, should be able to take advantage of the analysis and optimization capabilities of the product.
Q: Do I have to modify the software for my game, or install special drivers, in order to be able to use Intel® GPA?
A: For both the Intel® GPA System Analyzer HUD and the Intel® GPA Frame Analyzer, these tools can analyze your game without any code modifications or special libraries. This is possible because Intel GPA accesses the CPU, driver, DX, and GPU metrics directly from the game environment, a big plus for common analysis tasks. For more complex, task-based analysis with the Intel® GPA Platform Analyzer, you will benefit by inserting API calls that tag the various tasks in your game code -- but you'll just have to do this once, as the ITT API used by Intel® GPA is also used by a number of other Intel performance analysis tools.
Technical Requirements
Q: What are the Intel® GPA system requirements?
A: Intel® GPA requires a PC with a 2Ghz or faster processor; 2GB of system memory is required (though 4GB is recommended, especially for 64-bit systems), and 512MB of video RAM is required. Intel® GPA also requires the Microsoft Windows* 7 OS (32-bit or 64-bit), or Microsoft Windows Vista* OS (32-bit or 64-bit). The game or graphics application must use one of the following Microsoft DirectX* API's: 9/9EX, 10.0/10.1, or 11.0. In order to use the Media Performance feature of Intel GPA, your application needs to use Intel® Processor Graphics on a 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ Processor.
Q: What graphics devices does Intel® GPA support?
A: Intel® GPA supports the Intel® G45 Express Chipset, the Mobile Intel® GM45 Express Chipset, and Intel® HD graphics (including the latest generation, Intel® HD Graphics 2000/3000). However, while Intel does not test or support the use of Intel GPA on non-Intel graphics or older generations of Intel chipsets with processor graphics, the tools do not block or otherwise prevent the product's use on these other configurations.
Q: Does Intel® GPA work with netbook computers?
A: Yes, Intel® GPA supports many popular netbook computers. In particular, the product supports Atom-based netbooks configured with either the Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950 or Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 3150 graphics chipsets.
Intel® Graphics Checker
Q: What is Intel® Graphics Checker and why would I want to use it?
A: Intel® Graphics Checker is an easy-to-use software assessment tool that analyzes a special data capture generated by Intel® GPA. The tool creates a game playability report that you can upload to start taking advantage of valuable resources that can help promote your game title to a worldwide audience as part of the Intel® Software Partner Program. Intel Graphics Checker can be downloaded from the Intel Software Partner Program website and from the Intel GPA website.
Product Support
Q: How do I get support for Intel® GPA?
A: The primary support model for Intel® GPA is through the product's Support Forum and Knowledge Base articles. At the Support Forum you can ask questions about the product, share your experiences with other users of the product, and ask for assistance should you encounter issues when using Intel GPA. The Knowledge Base contains various technical notes, "tips & tricks", training material, and pointers to other information that may be of interest to both novice and experienced users alike.
Q: Will Intel® GPA support all future Intel graphics devices?
A: Intel intends to continue offering the tools that allow developers to take the best advantage of Intel graphics devices, both now and into the future. We will continue to identify, with close cooperation from developers, the best tools to enable optimization and performance of these devices.
Q: What should I expect to see if I attempt to run Intel® GPA on non-supported graphics devices?
A: Features and performance will vary based upon the hardware capabilities of these other configurations. For example, on non-supported devices the Intel® GPA System Analyzer HUD is not able to show metrics gathered from the GPU (such as pixel draw rate), but most of the Intel® GPA Frame Analyzer functions should work on any graphics device, since Intel GPA is a Microsoft DirectX* software performance tool.
Q: What is your plan for supporting OpenGL*?
A: We are actively exploring enhancing Intel® GPA to support OpenGL*. If you have specific OpenGL* needs or feature requests, we would love to hear from you at the Intel GPA Support Forum. Specific plans for this API will be announced at a later date.
Q: How do I submit suggestions or feedback to the development team?
A: Use the Intel® GPA Support Forum to submit suggestions on new features, and/or to comment on the features currently in the product.
* Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
Do you need more help?
This article applies to: Game Development, Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel® GPA), Visual Computing, Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers Knowledge Base
For more complete information about compiler optimizations, see our Optimization Notice.
Comments (2) 
| October 16, 2011 3:27 AM PDT
mustylou
| I would like something equal to this but to do with everyday computing as I love to download pictures and anything having to do with them. I have some pretty neat programs downloaded too. I do quite a bit of downloading and woud like to have some more memory plus a simulation of this program but not for games as I don't play them. Same Intel product minus the games. Is this possible, I sure hope so as I am excited to be part of all this! Hope to hear from you soon, Janet. |
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To obtain technical support, please go to Software Support.
Author
Neal P. (Intel)
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Aaron Davies (Intel)
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optimization FAQ GPA graphics performance analyzers game asset optimization graphics graphics optimization Sandy Bridge GPA 4 vcsource_type_techarticle vcsource_domain_media vcsource_os_windows vcsource_platform_desktoplaptop vcsource_domain_graphics vcsource_product_gpa vcsource_domain_gamedev vcsource_index
Neal P. (Intel)
11,797
Thanks for your question...
The first thing you need to know is that Intel GPA is a developer tool, and not an end-user tool. In other words, Intel GPA is intended for use by developers who have access to the source code for a game; this product will not be able to improve graphics performance for end users trying to run a specific game on a particular system (such as Assasins Creed).
If you are interested in improving the performance of a game that you have purchased, I would recommend that you either consult the various user forums for that specific game, or try posting your question on the User Community for Visual Computing Forum (http://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/user-community-for-visual-computing/).
Hopefully this answered your question.
Regards,
Neal