If you're a game developer, Intel has some great tools to help make your game "best in class"!

Intel Graphics Checker 3.0 now works together with Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel® GPA) to help you quickly create an Intel® GPA data capture file and generate a game playability report that can be uploaded to start engaging with the Intel® Software Partner Program.

The benefits are that you will better understand the playability of your game on PCs with Intel® Graphics, access tips and tools to improve your game’s acceptance in the marketplace, and access resources that can broaden the worldwide audience for your game.

If you're already familiar with the tool and want to download the latest version now, you can get it here.

What's New

• Analysis of a special data capture file generated by Intel GPA that contains approximately 600 frames of graphics data.
• Creates an updated game playability report containing key hardware and software configuration details, plus frames per second, CPU utilization, and GPU utilization metrics.
• Ability to upload a game playability report to the Intel Software Partner Program website and access an updated, customized Software Assessment Report that compares game playability results to Intel-suggested values, provides recommendations and next steps, and displays a Software Assessment History.

Getting Started

• Download Intel GPA from this site.
• Download Intel Graphics Checker from here and install on the same PC that contains Intel GPA.
• After launching your game using the Intel GPA Monitor, use the Intel GPA System Analyzer HUD keyboard shortcut (the default is Ctrl-Shift-B) to capture approximately 600 frames of graphics data into a Intel Graphics Checker data capture file.
• After capturing an Intel® Graphics Checker data file using the Intel® GPA System Analyzer HUD keyboard shortcut, launch Intel Graphics Checker and follow the on-screen instructions to analyze the data capture and view results such as can be seen in the following example report:
  

• Your Intel Graphics Checker report can then be uploaded to the Intel Software Partner Program website, to access a customized Software Assessment Report that compares game playability results to Intel-suggested values, provides recommendations and next steps, and displays a software assessment history, such as seen here (click on the image to download a sample report in PDF format):
  

Where to Next...

If you are interested in improving your game’s playability, you’ve now got Intel GPA at your fingertips. Intel GPA is a powerful, agile tool suite enabling game developers to utilize the full performance potential of Intel® multi-core processors and Intel® processor graphics. If you are not already familiar with using Intel GPA to identify and solve game performance problems, the Getting Started Guide is an excellent place to dive in and…well, get started!

Also, there’s a couple of brief (2-3 minute) video tutorials showing how Intel GPA and Intel Graphics Checker work together: Creating an Intel Graphics Checker Data File and Analyzing an Intel Graphics Checker Data File.

To learn more about Intel® Graphics Checker, visit the Intel® Software Partner Program Software Assessment Center. If your company is not already a member, join today – enrollment is free and takes only a few minutes. In addition to valuable development resources, members can access business resources designed to increase their product visibility with a worldwide audience.

Thanks for using Intel GPA!

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Announcing Version 4.0 of Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel® GPA)

• General
  • New workflows simplify analyzing games
  • Microsoft DirectX* 11 support allows more games to be analyzed and optimized with the product
  • Fully-configurable triggers to automatically capture frame or trace files (for example, "capture all frames that are slower than 20 FPS")
  • Screenshot thumbnails provided for frame capture files, providing a visual queue for which frame to analyze
  • New "how to" help videos assist both new users and seasoned veterans to more quickly take advantage of the new release
• Intel® GPA System Analyzer Heads-Up Display (HUD)
  • The new HUD interface provides for an easier, more intuitive analysis when running on a single PC
  • Support for new GPU metrics when running on Intel® HD Graphics 2000/3000 hardware provides for an even more detailed analysis of your game's performance bottlenecks
• Intel® GPA Frame Analyzer
  • Multiple Render Target (MRT) view support for games that utilize this feature
  • Vendor-specific texture types now supported
  • Support for new GPU metrics when running on Intel® HD Graphics 2000/3000 hardware provides for an even more detailed analysis of your game's performance bottlenecks
• Intel® GPA Platform Analyzer (beta release)
  • The features of the Intel® GPA System Analyzer Platform View (originally released with Intel GPA 3.0) have now been implemented as a stand-alone application
  • A new, optimized tracing API makes it easier to add instrumentation to your own games and graphics applications.
• Analyzing CPU and GPU workloads enabled by Microsoft Internet Explorer 9* (experimental feature)
  
  • Internet Explorer 9* supports hardware-accelerated graphics for content rendering, page composition, and desktop composition (see this article for more details). For those developing graphics-rich web content, Intel GPA is a "must have" tool for optimizing this content for your users.
  • Note: In order to enable Intel GPA profiling for the browser, you'll need to use an Internet Explorer 9* registry setting so that all your tabs open under the same iexplore.exe process (TabProcGrowth=0). See this article for details.
  • This feature first appeared in Intel GPA 4.0, Build 142660.

• Intel® GPA System Analyzer Heads-Up Display (HUD)

• Intel® GPA Frame Analyzer

• Intel® GPA Platform Analyzer

• Intel® GPA System Analyzer HUD (Heads-Up Display) - displays application performance metrics in real time, overlaid on your Microsoft DirectX* application. This tool enables you to understand the high-level performance profile of your graphics application, in order to determine whether your application is CPU bound or GPU bound. If your application is GPU bound, you can use a keyboard shortcuts to capture a GPU frame for detailed analysis by the Intel® GPA Frame Analyzer. If your application is CPU-bound, you can use a keyboard shortcut to capture a trace file for detailed analysis by the Intel® GPA Platform Analyzer. Press Ctrl-F1 in the HUD to see the keyboard shortcut list.
• Intel® GPA Frame Analyzer - provides a detailed view of a captured frame file, which contains all Microsoft DirectX* context used to render the selected 3D frame, as well as per-draw call/region GPU metrics. This tool enables you to understand the performance of your application at the frame level, render target level, and drawcall level. It enables detailed analysis and "what if" optimization experiments without the need to recompile or rebuild your application.
• Intel® GPA Platform Analyzer (beta release) - visualizes the execution profile of the tasks in your code on the heterogeneous (CPU+GPU) PC platform over time. This tool collects trace data during the application run to provide detailed analysis of how your code executes across all threads, and correlates the CPU work with work being done on the GPU. The tool automatically aligns clocks across all cores in the entire system so that you can analyze CPU-based workloads together with GPU-based workloads on the timeline.
• Intel® GPA Monitor - connects Intel® GPA to your application (locally or on a remote computer), and enables you to configure the HUD mode and keyboard shortcuts.