Intel Software Network articles Feed http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-gpa-kb/type/known-issues/ en-us Intel® GPA Tip: Workaround for games that trap all keystrokes
If you want to capture frames or traces you have two choices when using the Intel GPA System Analyzer/HUD: (1) use the “capture” button of Intel GPA System Analyzer / Standalone instead of Intel GPA System Analyzer/HUD, or (2) define a trigger to automatically capture a frame or trace when certain conditions occur (such as FPS < 20).

If you decide to use System Analyzer / Standalone, we recommend that you run this client from another machine in order to minimize the impact on the target system.
04-17-2012
04-17-2012
Tech Articles
Intel® GPA
Performance Analysis
no
When using Intel GPA System Analyzer / HUD, keyboard shortcuts may not work because the game is trapping all keystrokes. This article describes a workaround for this situation.
]]> http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-gpa-tip-games-that-trap-keystrokes/ Mon, 16 Apr 2012 23:00:00 -0700 http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-gpa-tip-games-that-trap-keystrokes/#comments http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-gpa-tip-games-that-trap-keystrokes/ Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers Knowledge Base Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel® GPA) 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: don&#39;t change an application&#39;s monitor once System Analyzer HUD has started analyzing the app Introduction The Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel® GPA) developer tool suite provides a complete toolkit for analyzing and optimizing your games, media, and other graphics-intensive applications.

This article describes a limitation of one of the tools in the Intel GPA suite, the Intel GPA System Analyzer HUD. We'll describe the limitation, then provide some suggestions to keep you from encountering the issue.

Issue Description

When using the Intel GPA System Analyzer HUD (Heads-Up Display) to analyze a game, after the HUD appears:
  • do not move an application's window from one monitor to another
  • do not change from windowed mode to full screen mode (or full screen mode to windowed mode)
In both of these situations Intel GPA may either stop running (that is, the HUD disappears), or you may see errors in the application or Intel GPA.

Workarounds

If you encounter this issue when trying to analyze a game or application with Intel GPA, there are options available to you.

Applications often provide an option to force use of a particular monitor, or to startup in windowed mode or full screen mode. You can typically do this through a command line option or using a "config file". For example, many games allow you to startup in windowed mode by appending "-window" to the command line (or "-fullscreen" for full screen mode). If no option exists for starting the application on a specific monitor, try disabling all secondary screens to force the application to run on that monitor.

To use command line options with Intel GPA, right-click on the Intel GPA Monitor in the taskbar notification area, select Analyze Application..., then in the Command Line field enter the pathname of the application and all command line options, then select Run:
cmdline.jpg


Where to Next...

If this article doesn't help solve your problem, please let us know in the Intel GPA Support Forums. Also, if you have  suggestions for how we can improve the product, leave us a note on the Support Forums -- we would love to hear from you!


* Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
08-15-2011
01-20-2012
Tech Articles
Intel® GPA
This article describes a limitation with the Intel® GPA System Analyzer HUD. When analyzing an application you can't change the monitor or change from windowed mode to full screen mode (or vice versa). We provide suggestions for avoiding this limitation.
]]> http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/gpa-tip-dont-change-graphics-devices/ Tue, 06 Sep 2011 23:00:00 -0700 http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/gpa-tip-dont-change-graphics-devices/#comments http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/gpa-tip-dont-change-graphics-devices/ ISN General Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers Knowledge Base Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel® GPA) Visual Computing Source 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: using multi-byte filenames Introduction
Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel® GPA) is a suite of tools that helps graphics developers analyze and optimize their games and applications for the PC market.

Some users may notice that multi-byte characters appear as "?" in the various dialog boxes within the tools, as well as files created by the product (such as frame capture files).

The rest of this article describes the issue and how to work around the problem.

Symptoms, Analysis, and Resolution
When using the Intel® GPA Monitor, if you use multi-byte characters in the "Analyze Application..." dialog boxes, you may notice that filenames may appear with one or more "?" instead of the characters that you expected. This may also be seen when creating frame capture or trace capture files, as these filenames by default include the name of the original application in the first part of the filename.

However, the problem only occurs when a user has a non-localized operating system version, but uses non-English letters for programs and filenames.

To resolve this problem, on Microsoft Windows 7* go to Start-> Control Panel-> Region and Language-> Administrative tab, and change the current language for non-Unicode programs to the same language as you use for programs and filenames.

Below is a screenshot of the dialog box that you will need to change:

multi.png



The development team is aware of the problem, and is considering what options exist for resolving this issue in a future release of the product.


* Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
08-15-2011
01-20-2012
Tech Articles
Intel® GPA
Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel® GPA) is a suite of tools that helps game developers analyze and optimize their games for the PC market. This technical article describes how to use multi-byte filenames with Version 4 of the product.
]]> http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/gpa-40-multi-byte-filenames/ Tue, 15 Mar 2011 23:00:00 -0700 http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/gpa-40-multi-byte-filenames/#comments http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/gpa-40-multi-byte-filenames/ 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: using simple pixel shader Introduction
Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel® GPA) includes a number of override modes in both the Intel GPA System Analyzer HUD and the Intel GPA Frame Analyzer. These override modes and experiments are fairly easy to understand and use (especially if you've got the Intel GPA Help File as a reference!),

But some users have found that using "Simple Pixel Shader" produces unexpected results -- using the "simple" shader actually takes longer to render than the original shaders!

The rest of this article describes why you might see unusual results, and how to "look under the hood" to detect when this is happening.

Wait a Minute... what's going on here?
Here's the setup: a game developer wants to analyze her game on a low-cost netbook system that includes a low-end graphics chipset. She runs Intel GPA System Analyzer to create a frame capture file for later analysis.

Within Intel GPA Frame Analyzer, she wants to see whether the shaders are taking up too much rendering time, so she uses the "Simple Pixel Shader" option in the experiments tab. But what Intel GPA reports is an increase in rendering time with "Simple Pixel Shader", rather than the expected decrease!

Let’s Look Under the Hood…
The Intel GPA developer team examined the user's frame capture file, and found out that the game was using DX9 mode -- on this configuration the game does not generate any pixel or vertex shaders, but instead uses the DirectX fixed function pipeline. The team verified this by loading the frame capture file into Intel GPA Frame Analyzer, and within the "shaders" tab found that no vertex or pixel shaders are present (all values are "0").

But to implement "Simple Pixel Shaders", Intel GPA substitutes a "simple" pixel shader for rendering the frame that uses the programmable pipeline, independent of how the original frame was rendered (which in this case the system used the fixed function pipeline). Also, as one might expect, on this low-end platform the programmable pipleline always renders more slowly than the fixed function pipeline.

Conclusion
If you have no vertex or pixel shaders, do not use the "Simple Pixel Shaders" experiment, as you may find that Intel GPA reports slower rendering times that you might expect. If you see unexpected results when using this experiment, check to see whether any shaders are defined by using the "shaders" tab within Intel GPA Frame Analyzer.

Extra Credit...
By the way, note that some devices will emulate various fixed viewing pipeline operations with internal operations, so that Intel GPA shows time being spent performing operations that on the surface look wrong. For example, using "clear" may show the Pixel Shader time is non-zero.
Neal Pierman
04-21-2010
04-21-2010
Tech Articles
Intel® GPA
Performance Analysis
no
Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel® GPA) includes a number of override modes in both the Intel GPA System Analyzer HUD and the Intel GPA Frame Analyzer. Some users have found that using "Simple Pixel Shader" override sometimes actually takes longer to render the frame than the original shaders! This article describes why you might see unusual results, and how to "look under the hood" to detect when this is happening.
]]> http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-gpa-tips-for-using-simple-pixel-shader/ Mon, 19 Apr 2010 23:00:00 -0700 http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-gpa-tips-for-using-simple-pixel-shader/#comments http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-gpa-tips-for-using-simple-pixel-shader/ ISN General Visual Computing 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 Intel® GPA Troubleshooting Tip: Check Video Memory Setting Short Description/Solution:

If you experience trouble capturing or playing back frames on supported systems, you may need to adjust the amount of memory available for DVMT (Dynamic Video Memory Technology) through your system’s BIOS; ensure that DVMT is set to a minimum of 512MB for proper operation with Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel® GPA).

One other hint for users: when possible, run the Intel GPA tools using a 64-bit version of the OS (such as Microsoft Windows 7* in 64-bit mode) with at least 4GB of physical memory.

Detailed Discussion:

When creating a capture file with Intel® GPA System Analyzer, in some cases the user may encounter an error during the creation of this file. In other cases, the capture file may appear to be created successfully, but you may encounter an error when trying to read the file within Intel® GPA Frame Analyzer. Furthermore, the error message displayed by these applications will be cryptic at best, leaving you wondering what's going on.

It ends up that the minimum system requirements for Intel® GPA is 512MB of video memory (though larger would be preferred if available). The reason for this is that GPA needs to save portions of the DX state in video memory when creating capture files. The larger and more complex the frame, the more video memory is required.

For most supported systems this is not a problem, as typically systems that use the supported graphics chipsets by default set video memory to 512MB or more. However, in some cases we've seen systems with the default video memory configurations set to only 128MB, which is below the minimum required by Intel GPA.

Unfortunately, there is no universal solution to this problem, as each system vendor provides different ways of determining and/or setting the video memory allocated to the graphics device. On some systems you may be able to inquire the amount of video memory for the graphics device through the control panel for that device; on others you may only be able to see this value when you reboot and examine the setting in the BIOS. Other system configurations may not let you change the video memory settings at all.

Therefore, for Intel graphics devices the “information” button for Intel GPA System Analyzer will display the video memory setting for the target graphics device. Though Intel GPA can’t set the value to a minimum of 512MB, you will at least be able to see whether your configuration meets the required system settings required by Intel GPA. [NOTE: unfortunately non-Intel graphics devices do not provide VRAM information in a standard way, so Intel GPA is not able to inquire/display this info for this class of devices.]


* Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
08-15-2011
01-20-2012
Tech Articles
Intel® GPA
Due to insufficient video memory, Intel® GPA applications may fail when creating and/or reading large capture files. If this occurs, check your video memory settings and increase to a minimum of 512MB.
]]> http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/gpa-troubleshooting-tip-check-video-memory-setting/ Wed, 24 Feb 2010 23:00:00 -0800 http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/gpa-troubleshooting-tip-check-video-memory-setting/#comments http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/gpa-troubleshooting-tip-check-video-memory-setting/ Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers Knowledge Base Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel® GPA) Visual Computing Source