Intel Software Network articles Feed http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-gpa-kb/type/errors-diagnostics/ en-us Intel GPA 2012: Graphics Checker not supported Graphics Checker Not Operational with Intel GPA 2012

Support for Intel Graphics Checker has been deprecated in the current 2012 release of Intel GPA. A new Graphics Checker functionality will be provided in the near future. We are sorry for any inconvenience as we transition to this new capability.

If you create a Graphics Checker file with Intel GPA 2012 and attempt to use it with Graphics Checker, you will see the following error: "Intel GPA not detected. To correct, install the current version of Intel GPA." However, this error messsage from Graphics Checker is incorrect, since you already have the latest version of Intel GPA installed (2012).

03-16-2012
03-19-2012
Tech Articles
Intel® GPA
Support for Intel Graphics Checker has been deprecated in the 2012 R1 version of Intel GPA. A new Graphics Checker functionality will be provided in the near future. We are sorry for any inconvenience as we transition to this new capability.
]]> http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-gpa-graphics-checker-issues/ Thu, 08 Mar 2012 23:00:00 -0800 http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-gpa-graphics-checker-issues/#comments http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-gpa-graphics-checker-issues/ Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers Knowledge Base Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel® GPA) Intel® GPA tip: running the tools on Intel-based netbooks Introduction
Netbook PC's have become more than a niche player in the mobile computing marketplace. To take advantage of this trend, companies have been developing games and other graphics products targeted for this market. As one can expect, many game developers have been asking "What tools are available for optimizing my game on netbooks?"

Updates to the Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers product (Intel® GPA) and Intel graphics drivers now allow you to use Intel GPA on some of the more common netbook platforms. So download the latest version of Intel GPA from the GPA Home Page and the latest version of the Intel graphics drivers from the Intel Download Site.

This article discusses what developers should expect when using Intel GPA to analyzing their game on Intel-based netbooks.


Overall Best Practices
Netbook PC's tend to have minimal resources compared to typical laptops or desktop systems. In particular, they'll have a 32-bit OS and less than 2GB of memory. This is fine for typical day-to-day use, but Intel GPA requires more resources -- analysis of frame capture files and trace capture files works best when running GPA in a client/server mode where the client has 4GB or more of memory and is running a 64-bit OS.


Intel® GPA Features Supported on GMA 950 and GMA 3150 Systems
For these systems, Intel® GPA System Analyzer will report key system and Microsoft DirectX* metrics, and Intel® GPA Frame Analyzer will report graphics rendering times for all selected draw calls. However, since this graphics chipset does not have built-in hardware metrics, Intel GPA will show larger error bars consistent with timer-based metrics.


Intel® GPA Features Supported on GMA 3650 Systems
For these systems, the graphics architecture utilizes tile-based rendering, so Intel GPA cannot provide accurate metrics for individual draw calls. So GPU-based metrics for Intel® GPA System Analyzer and Intel® GPA Frame Analyzer are restricted to metrics for entire render targets instead of individual draw calls. Also, for the Visualization Panel within Intel® GPA Frame Analyzer you are limited to viewing the data based upon render targets (that is, the "erg graph" option is not available).


Non-Supported Systems
A number of netbooks are configured with Intel® GMA 500 graphics. Typically these systems use the Intel® Atom Z processor. For these systems, Intel GPA is not able to provide metrics data, and will print an error message when you use Intel GPA on these systems.


Conclusion
Game developers using the latest version of Intel® GPA now have an option for analyzing and optimizing their games on many popular netbooks based upon Intel® netbook processors and chipsets. In particular, game developers using either Intel® GMA 950 graphics, Intel® GMA 3150 graphics, or Intel® GMA 3650 graphics can now analyze their games and  optimize the playability of their product on these netbooks.

Developers targeting netbook-based systems should also see this article, which provides tips and tricks for optimizing application performance on Intel® AtomTM processors.

See the Intel GPA Home page for download options and additional information about the product.


* Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
08-15-2011
03-01-2012
Tech Articles
Intel® GPA
This article describes the behavior of Intel® GPA on netbooks based on Intel® processors and chipsets. Using version 4 of Intel GPA with the latest graphics drivers now allows you to analyze and optimize your game on these platforms.
]]> http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/gpa-tip-running-on-netbooks/ Sat, 19 Mar 2011 23:00:00 -0700 http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/gpa-tip-running-on-netbooks/#comments http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/gpa-tip-running-on-netbooks/ Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers Knowledge Base Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel® GPA) Visual Computing Source Intel® GPA Tip: workaround for install errrors Introduction
It is possible that a very small number of users will receive an error while trying to install the Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers product (Intel® GPA).

This article provides information regarding the error message and how to install a Microsoft* patch that fixes the issue.

Problem Description
Some users may receive the following error when installing one or more of the prerequisites required by Intel GPA: "An error occurred while installing system components for Intel GPA Prerequisite. Setup cannot continue until all system components have been successfully installed."

When this error occurs the user cannot install Intel GPA.

Problem Analysis and Resolution
When analyzing the error, the Intel GPA Development Team found that the issue is that a number of security certificates required by Intel GPA are not always available on the installation machine, especially if the machine is "new".

To fix the problem, download and install the most recent Update for Root Certificates from Microsoft Web Site (usually accomplished by using the Windows Update procedure), then retry the installation of Intel GPA. [NOTE: to manually update security certificates, as of March of 2011 you can install this Microsoft* patch; though it states the patch is for Microsoft Windows XP*, it also works for Microsoft Windows Vista* and Microsoft Windows 7* systems.]

If updating the certificates does not resolve the error, please start a new thread on the Intel GPA Support Forum, and we'll work with you to resolve the issue.


* Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

08-15-2011
01-20-2012
Tech Articles
Intel® GPA
Under some situations Intel® encounters an error when trying to install prerequisites (such as the Microsoft DirectX* runtime libraries). This article provides a workaround for the issue.
]]> http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/gpa40-workaround-for-install-errrors/ Tue, 08 Mar 2011 23:00:00 -0800 http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/gpa40-workaround-for-install-errrors/#comments http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/gpa40-workaround-for-install-errrors/ ISN General Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers Knowledge Base Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel® GPA) Visual Computing Source Intel® GPA tip: Interpreting API errors when using Intel GPA Frame Analyzer Introduction
Saving a frame from your game for later analysis is one of the major features of Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel® GPA). When Intel GPA creates this file, it saves the context of all Microsoft DirectX* API calls that were used to create the frame.

However, in some situations Intel GPA Frame Analyzer may report DX API errors in the capture file, even though no errors were reported when running your game or when capturing the file. The rest of this article explains why you may see these errors, and how to check whether these are an issue that may affect your analysis and optimization task.

Situation #1 -- Playback errors occur when creation and playback graphics devices are different
Another situation where you might see errors within Intel GPA Frame Analyzer occurs when you attempt to load a frame capture file on a graphics device that is different from the graphics device you used to create the capture file. Even though Intel GPA will print a warning message for this situation, the tool does allow you to continue -- but you're responsible for ensuring that this works OK.

In this situation the errors that occur within Intel GPA Frame Analyzer may be significant, and keep you from successfully analyzing this frame. As you might expect, issues will most likely occur when the original graphics device has far more capabilities than the device you are using for playback -- such as a high-end, discrete graphics card and a low-end netbook. Therefore, making DX calls that attempt to use resources and features that don't exist will have unpredictable results, and this is not something that Intel GPA can fix for you.

So a good "rule of thumb" when using a single frame capture file on multiple devices:
  • capture the frame on the least capable device, since the more capable devices will likely provide all the capabilities of the original device (and therefore have no issues)
  • don't use a frame capture file created on one vendor's system with another vendor's system (since it's more likely that they'll have various features that don't quite match across architectures)
Situation #2 -- Playback errors are expected and can be ignored
As mentioned above, all DirectX calls are saved to the capture file. But the original game code may make DX calls that it expects may generate errors, and since they are expected the game doesn't report these errors back to the user. When you then load that capture file into Intel GPA Frame Analyzer, Intel GPA may report an error message that one or more API errors were found (even though none were reported when running the game), and ask whether you want to continue loading the file.

The Intel GPA development team has seen this in a couple of cases already -- one game attempts to use a proprietary texture format, and if that texture map creation call fails it then creates that texture map using a more portable texture format. In another situation a developer wants to see whether a particular graphic resource exists -- to do this they check the return code from a DX API call that attempts to use that resource.

So in both of these cases the user doesn't see any errors, but the original API call appears in the frame capture file. In both cases when loading the file you'll see an error in Intel GPA Frame Analyzer -- to verify that all is in fact OK, select one or more ergs within the GUI, then open the "API Log" tab to examine the API calls, where Intel GPA will highlight any errors in red. If all items highlighted in red are expected, just ignore them.

Conclusion
This article has described a couple of situations where you may see errors when loading and/or playing back frame capture files within Intel GPA Frame Analyzer. We've attempted to help you understand the nature of these errors, and whether you can ignore these errors during your analysis.

If you still have questions after reading this article, please use the Intel GPA Support Forum to ask a question or describe an issue you are having with the product.


* Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
08-15-2011
01-20-2012
Tech Articles
Intel® GPA
When Intel® GPA creates frame capture files, all DX calls your game makes are included in the file, including calls that return errors. This article describes the tool's handling of API errors, and what you need to do when Intel GPA reports them.
]]> http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/gpa-tip-api-errors-in-capture-files/ Tue, 11 May 2010 23:00:00 -0700 http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/gpa-tip-api-errors-in-capture-files/#comments http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/gpa-tip-api-errors-in-capture-files/ Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers Knowledge Base Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel® GPA) Visual Computing Source Intel® GPA Troubleshooting Tip: Disable anti-virus or firewall software Problem:
Though you've installed Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel® GPA) without errors, you may encounter one or more of the following symptoms after starting the Intel GPA tools:
  • the game never starts on the target system, or crashes when using Intel GPA
  • the Intel GPA applications or the game you are analyzing become non-responsive
  • you receive an error from the Intel GPA Monitor indicating that it cannot attach to the game or graphics application
Root Cause:
Intel GPA creates a socket network connection between the target and client systems which is used for sending commands and data between the two system. This connection is required even if the target and client are co-located on the same physical hardware. But on some systems security software products may block or interfere with the communication between the target and client, so that one or more of the Intel GPA applications may be unable to connect with the Intel GPA Monitor, or the Intel GPA applications become non-responsive.


Resolution:
First, disable any anti-virus and/or firewall software that may be running on either the client or target systems, reboot your computer, then restart the Intel GPA applications.

Note that we have reports from customers that the following products may interfere with the operation of Intel GPA: McAfee VirusScan Enterprise*. Also, it is possible that similar products from other vendors will also interfere with Intel GPA, so please let us know about these other tools at the Intel GPA Support Forums.

Finally, remember that disabling anti-virus or firewall software may leave you open to security attacks, so take other precautions to ensure the security of your systems.


* Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

08-15-2011
01-20-2012
Tech Articles
Intel® GPA
Anti-virus or firewall software can interfere with the operation of Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel® GPA). This article describes the issue and ways to workaround the problem.
]]> http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/gpa-tip-disable-microsoft-live-onecare/ Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:00:00 -0800 http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/gpa-tip-disable-microsoft-live-onecare/#comments http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/gpa-tip-disable-microsoft-live-onecare/ Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers Knowledge Base Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel® GPA) Visual Computing Source