Introduction

Thank you for choosing the Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel® GPA) for optimizing your graphics based game or application. This document provides system requirements, installation instructions, issues and limitations, and legal information.

For additional information and assistance in using the product, refer to the following Intel GPA online resources:

• Intel GPA Online Help
• Intel GPA Getting Started Guide for Windows* OS
• Intel GPA Getting Started Guide for Android* OS
• Intel GPA Home Page
• Intel GPA Knowledge Base articles
• Intel GPA Support Forum
• Intel GPA FAQ

System Requirements and Supported Platforms

Minimum requirements for client machines used to analyze Windows* OS or Android* OS workloads are: Intel® Core™ Processor with a minimum of 2GB of memory. At least 4GB of memory and a 64-bit OS are highly recommended.

• Client Processor: Intel® Core™ Processor
• Target Processor: 1.6GHz
• System Memory: 2GB RAM (4GB recommended)
• Video Memory: 512MB RAM
• Minimum resolution: 1280x1024
• Disk Space: 110MB for minimal product installation

The table below shows platforms and applications supported by Intel GPA 2013 R1.

Intel GPA supports the following graphics devices as targets for analyzing Windows* OS workloads. All these targets have enhanced metric support:

• Intel® HD Graphics 2000/3000 (2nd Generation Intel® Core™ Processors)
• Intel® HD Graphics 2500/4000 (3rd Generation Intel® Core™ Processors)

Although Intel GPA may work with other graphics devices, they are unsupported. Some features and metrics may not be available on unsupported platforms. If you run into in an issue when using Intel GPA with any supported or unsupported graphics device, please report this issue through the Intel GPA Support Forum.

Intel GPA supports the following Intel® Atom™ based phones as targets for analyzing Android* OS workloads:

• MegaFon Mint*
• Orange San Diego*
• Lava XOLO*
• Lenovo K800*
• Motorola RAZR I*
• Acer Liquid C1*
• Motorola MT788*
• ZTE Grand X In*

Android* OS products not on the above list are unsupported. You should not attempt to run Intel GPA on unsupported Android* OS devices.

Special Notes:

• Intel® Integrated Graphics hardware dedicates a portion of system memory for use by the graphics hardware. The minimum Video Memory number above refers to the amount of system memory dedicated for use by the integrated graphics hardware.
• In order to run Intel® GPA on hybrid graphics solutions (a combination of Intel Processor Graphics and third-party discrete graphics), you must first disable one of the graphics solutions.
• Due to the intensive nature of graphics analysis, the Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers run best on 64-bit versions of Windows* 7 and Windows* 8 OS.
• Intel® GPA System Analyzer supports Intel® Atom™ based phones using the Android* OS.
• Intel® GPA does not support the following Windows* OS configurations: all server editions, Windows* 8 RT, or Windows* 7 starter kit. For details, please see this article.
• Intel® GPA does not support profiling of DirectX* 10 applications on Windows* 8 OS. The recommended industry approach to support DirectX* 10 on Windows* 8 is to use DirectX* 11 feature level 10 support.
• For Windows* 8 Store Applications, Intel® GPA System Analyzer cannot create frame capture and trace capture files.

Driver Requirements for Intel® HD Graphics

When running Intel® GPA on platforms with supported Intel® HD Graphics, Intel GPA requires the latest graphics drivers for proper operation. You may download and install the latest graphics drivers from http://downloadcenter.intel.com/. Specifically, the graphics driver version must be at least:

Intel GPA inspects your current driver version and notifies you if your driver is out of date.

Downloading Intel® GPA

To get a copy of Intel® GPA, go to the Intel GPA Home Page and click the Download button. You can select the required version of the tool from the opened window. To determine which version of Intel GPA to download, see the article Intel® GPA 2013: Which Version Should I Download and Install?

Installing Intel® GPA

Windows* OS Target and Analysis Platform

Once you have downloaded the self-extracting .exe file:

1. Open the self-extracting executable file.
2. Run setup.exe located in the top-level directory of the extracted files.
3. Install the product from an Administrator account.

If you use the product in a client/target configuration, install Intel GPA on both systems. For more information on the client/target configuration, refer to Best Practices.
The installer automatically installs the following prerequisites if needed:

• Microsoft DirectX* Runtime June 2010
• Microsoft .NET 4.0 (via redirection to an external web site for download and installation)

OS X* Analysis Platform

Follow the steps listed below to install the Intel® GPA System Analyzer on a system with OS X*:

1. Mount the disk image intel-gpa_13.1_x64.dmg into the machine by double-clicking the file.
2. Read the end-user license agreement (EULA). If you agree to the terms and conditions of the EULA, click Agree to accept the agreement.

3. A new Finder window will appear.
   Drag and drop the Intel GPA System Analyzer icon to the Applications directory.

NOTE: You do not need to explicitly install Intel GPA on the Android* OS target device since Intel GPA automatically installs the necessary files on the target device when you run Intel GPA System Analyzer.

Ubuntu* OS Analysis Platform

Follow the steps listed below to install the Intel® GPA System Analyzer on a system with an Ubuntu* OS:

1. Make sure that the sharutils package is installed on your client machine.
2. For an x86 system:
• Change file permissions by running the command chmod 755 intel-gpa_13.1_x86.deb.shar.
• Execute the .shar file by running the command ./intel-gpa_13.1_x86.deb.shar.
3. For an x64 system:
• Change file permissions by running the command chmod 755 intel-gpa_13.1_x64.deb.shar
• Execute the.shar file by running the command ./intel-gpa_13.1_x64.deb.shar.
4. Read the end-user license agreement (EULA), and if you agree to the terms and conditions of the EULA then enter Y to accept the agreement.
5. Double-click the extracted .deb package to install it using the Ubuntu* OS package manager.

NOTE: You do not need to explicitly install Intel GPA on the Android* OS target device since Intel GPA automatically installs the necessary files on the target device when you run Intel GPA System Analyzer.

Updating Intel® GPA

If you have an earlier version of Intel GPA installed:

• Before installing Intel GPA, close all Intel GPA tools and any target applications that were started after using the Auto-detect launched applications option within the Intel® GPA Monitor. Otherwise, the Files in Use dialog box will appear, indicating which applications must be closed before installation can proceed.
• You can manually remove earlier Intel GPA versions later from the Windows* OS Control Panel.

For details on how to update Intel GPA on different operating systems, refer to Intel® GPA Updates on Windows* OS and Intel® GPA Updates on OS X* and Ubuntu* OS.

Android* OS Application Support

To get started with the Intel GPA on Android* OS, refer to the Getting Started Guide for Android* OS. 
To use the Intel® GPA System Analyzer on Android* OS x86 based devices, you need:

• An Intel-based mobile device with Android* OS.
• The latest version of Android* SDK installed on the client machine.
• Successfully established Android* Debug Bridge (adb) USB connection between an Android*-x86 based device and the client system.

For information on how to set up the Android* Debug Bridge USB connection for the Intel-based mobile devices, refer to the Online Help.

Troubleshooting Android* OS Connection Problems

If the target device does not appear when the “adb devices” command is executed on the target system, do the following:

1. Disconnect the device
2. Execute adb kill-server
3. Reconnect the device
4. Run adb devices

If these steps do not help, restart the system and then run “adb devices” again.

Intel® GPA Known Issues and Limitations

• To ensure accurate measurements on Intel® HD Graphics based platforms, be sure to profile your application in the full-screen mode. If windowed mode is required, make sure only your application is running. Intel GPA does not support profiling multiple applications simultaneously.
• For best results when analyzing frame or trace capture files on the same system where your run your game, follow these steps:
  • Run your game and capture a frame or trace file
  • Shut down your game and other non-essential applications
  • Launch the Intel GPA analysis tools
• In order to view the full metric set with GPA for Intel processor graphics on systems with one or more 3rd party graphics device(s) and Intel® HD Graphics based platforms, ensure that Intel is the preferred graphics processor. This can be set in the control panel application for the 3rd party hardware. Applications running under GPA and a 3rd party device on DirectX* 9 will show GPU metrics initialized to 0 and on DirectX* 10/11 those metrics will show up as unavailable.
• Intel GPA uses sophisticated techniques for analyzing graphics performance which may conflict with third-party performance analyzers. Therefore, ensure that other performance analyzers are disabled prior to running Intel GPA. For non Intel graphics, consult the vendor's website.
• When using the Intel GPA tools, be sure to disable the screen saver and power management features on the target machine running the Intel GPA Monitor — the screen saver will interfere with the quality of the metrics data being collected. In addition, if the target system is locked (which may happen when a Screen Saver starts), the connection from the analyzing system to the target system will be terminated.
• Intel GPA does not support frame capture or analysis:
  • For applications that execute on the Debug D3D runtime system
  • For applications that use the Reference D3D Device
  • For Windows* Store Applications running on Windows* 8
  • For any Android* OS workloads
• Intel GPA System Analyzer HUD may not operate properly when applications use copy-protection, anti-debugging mechanisms, or non-standard encrypted launching schemes.
• Intel GPA provides analysis functionality by inserting itself between your application and DirectX*. Therefore, Intel GPA may not work correctly with certain applications which themselves hook or intercept DirectX* APIs or interfaces.
• Intel GPA System Analyzer is the only Intel GPA tool supported on Ubuntu* OS and OS X*.
• Intel GPA does not support Windows* 8 OS Store Application written in HTML5.
• Intel GPA does not support use of Remote Desktop Connection.

Intel® GPA Frame Analyzer

• Intel GPA Frame Analyzer only supports the analysis of Windows* OS workloads.
• Intel GPA Frame Analyzer runs best on 64-bit operating systems with a minimum of 4GB of physical memory. Additionally, consider running the Intel GPA Frame Analyzer in a networked configuration (the server is your target graphics device, and the client running the Intel GPA Frame Analyzer tool is a 64-bit OS with at least 4GB of memory).
  On 32-bit operating systems (or 64-bit operating systems with <4GB of memory), warning messages, parse errors, very long load times, or other issues may occur when loading a large or complex frame capture file.
• Frame capture using Intel® GPA Monitor runs best on 64-bit operating systems with a minimum of 4GB of physical memory.
  On 32-bit operating systems (or 64-bit operating systems with <4GB of memory), out of memory or capture failed messages can occur.

Intel® GPA Platform Analyzer

• Intel GPA Platform Analyzer only supports the analysis of Windows* OS workloads.
• For graphics accelerators that do not support DirectX* Query Timestamp metrics, the GPU frame track will be absent from trace files.
• The right-click context menus for tasks present several relationship selection options. All options are currently available regardless when those relationships exist. When the relationship does not exist, the application resets the current selection.
• For the highest accuracy within a trace file, the target system should be an Intel® Core™ i3 or a newer platform. Using Intel GPA on older platforms may not provide sufficient accuracy due to hardware limitations of those architectures (namely, lack of CPU clock synchronization across cores).

Intel® GPA SDK

• Intel GPA SDK is only supported for Windows* operating systems.
• The Intel® Instrumentation and Tracing Technology (ITT) API for the Intel® GPA Platform Analyzer is supported under Microsoft Visual Studio* 2005, 2008, and 2010.
• The current working directory of your application which uses the SDK must be set to the Intel GPA installation directory in order to work correctly.