Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel® GPA) Release Notes and New Features

Release Notes

OVERVIEW

All Tools

• Support for Intel® Iris® Xe MAX Graphics

Graphics Monitor

• Added support for the "Auto-detect Launched Applications" option to work in Trace capture mode
• Added support for deferring capture of a Vulkan Stream to any point in time while the application is running (Deferred Capture)
• Added support for capturing multiple Deferred Captures of Vulkan and Direct3D* 12 during a single run

Graphics Frame Analyzer

• Improved the quality of Direct3D 12 stream capture and playback
• Changed the blank icon to a screenshot of the first frame of a Deferred Capture in the Open-File dialog in order to more easily identify your captures
• Full integer values are now shown in the buffers, instead of the abbreviated scientific notation values

Graphics Trace Analyzer

• Full support for Direct3D* 12 visualizations of synchronization primitives
  • Bezier curves tracing both the lifetime of a packet through its event calls, and dependencies between packets (wait/signal command queue calls) are shown
  • User-space ID3D12CommandQueue::Signal and ID3D12CommandQueue::Wait calls are now selected along with other dependent driver synchronization events
  • GPU to CPU synchronizations via D3D12Fence::SetEventOnCompletion are visualized on the timeline 
• Support for multi-GPU (discrete and integrated) profiling - view metrics from both GPUs in a single capture, concurrently
• Significantly reduced the time required to open a trace file

System Analyzer

• Support for multi-GPU (discrete and integrated) profiling - view metrics from both GPUs simultaneously.

GPA Framework

• Multi-frame analysis has been introduced for DirectX* 11 (Pre-Alpha Version)
• Reduce capture overhead - Deferred Capture
  • Triggering a capture at any point of game play is now supported for Vulkan and Direct3D* 12
  • Trigger multiple captures in a single session of gameplay
  • Specify the number of frames you want to capture
• Added support for extracting Direct3D 11 object names from metadata
• Direct3D 11 Metadata Extractor now includes RenderTarget binding information
• Added support for Direct3D 11 RenderTarget resource extraction
• Added support for Direct3D 11 Intel GPU Hardware query-based metrics collection
• Vulkan resource extractor supports extraction based on call stage flags (pre/post call execution)
• Support for Vulkan SDK 1.2.148. Please update Vulkan SDK to build against GPA Framework.
• Support for Windows SDK 19041. Maintains backward compatibility with the previous SDK.

Release Notes

OVERVIEW

All Tools

• Future support already enabled for the recently announced 11th Gen Intel® Core™ processors with Intel® Iris® Xe graphics

Graphics Frame Analyzer

• Variable Rate Shading (VRS) Tier2 support in Multi-frame Profiling View mode. Including screen-space visualization of the VRS image
• Microsoft DirectX* Raytracing Alpha support in Multi-frame Profiling View mode
• Initial support for Multi-GPU applications in Multi-frame Profiling View mode
• Added Microsoft Direct3D* 12 Command List debug regions and markers to API Log and Bar Chart
• Different types of Direct3D 12 Command Queues now explicitly shown in Multi-frame Profiling View
• Increased precision of floating point data buffers
   

Graphics Trace Analyzer

• DirectX Raytracing calls are now displayed in the thread tracks
• Added auto-highlighting of events to make CPU and GPU synchronization more transparent. When you select a synchronization event, all events that are related to it are highlighted as well
  • CPU synchronization with SetEvent and WaitForSingle(Multiple)Object(s)
  • GPU synchronization with DirectX 12 command queue Signal/Wait calls
• See our first two Graphics Trace Analyzer Deep Dive videos - more to come!

System Analyzer

• Increased the quality of CPU metrics on Windows* by significantly increasing the granularity of CPU counters for Intel hardware

GPA Framework

• Support for DirectX* 12 Variable Rate Shading Tier2
• Support for DirectX* Raytracing (Alpha)
• Deferred capture support for Vulkan was extended to cover more Unity* and Unreal* based workloads

Release Notes

OVERVIEW

Graphics Monitor

• Configure the sampling interval for Intel graphics metrics for both trace captures and stream captures
• Support for an extended set of Intel graphics metrics. Switch between different metrics sets and configure the exact set of metrics to be collected in Graphics Monitor

Graphics Frame Analyzer

• Initial support for Compute and Copy queues in Multi-Frame View
• Improved performance and UX of the Shader Binding pane
• Stable run-to-run metric measurements on 3rd party GPUs

Graphics Trace Analyzer

• All registered XML-based Events-Tracing-for-Windows providers are supported
• Consolidated track for multi-layered Flip queues

Release Notes

OVERVIEW

Graphics Monitor

• Unlimited customizable trigger enhancements
• User interface improvements with the ability to connect System Analyzer to a running application directly in the tool

Graphics Frame Analyzer

• Multi-step metric collection allowing for visualization on already collected metric values while other metrics are being collected
• Tool startup time is reduced

Graphics Trace Analyzer

• CPU Frames tracks for multi-context/multi-queue DirectX11, DirectX12, and Vulkan applications
• Metrics are saved into a trace file on Ubuntu

System Analyzer

• New System Analyzer user interface enabled by default containing Pause mode, the addition of Frame and Trace capture buttons, Intel Grapics GPU query based metrics and more!

Release Notes

OVERVIEW

What's New

Intel GPA 2019 R4 includes functional and security updates. Users should update to the latest version.

Intel GPA 2019 R4 offers the following new features:

New Features for Analyzing All Graphics APIs

Graphics Monitor

• The ability to view, open, and delete any frame, stream, or trace file directly from Graphics Monitor
• Customize the hotkey used to trigger the start/stop of a stream capture and keyframe creation

Graphics Frame Analyzer

• Preview stream files in the Open File window
• Group GPU events by custom regions both in the API Log and Bar Chart
• Added Multiframe View improvements:
  • Smaller default track size
  • Added navigation tree for metric tracks
  • Improved the functionality of reordering metric tracks
  • Improved range selection
• Fixed the intermediate shader code in Python Plugins

Graphics Trace Analyzer

• Collect system-wide time-based GPU metrics together with the metrics used for building the Parallel Event Execution track.
• Additional improvements:
  • Range selection
  • Summary table

New Features for Analyzing Microsoft DirectX* 11 Applications

Graphics Trace Analyzer

• GPU frame track for analyzing DirectX 11 applications.

New Features for Analyzing Microsoft DirectX 12 Applications

Graphics Monitor

• Trigger the start/stop of a stream capture for DirectX 12 applications using a hotkey

New Features for Intel® GPA Framework 

• New forward compatible stream file format. Streams taken from Intel(R) GPA Framework 2019.4 release and on, will always be replayable with future gpa-player releases.
• Added support for capturing D3D12 streams from an arbitrary moment during the application run. This mode can be enabled with the capture layer parameter "deferred=<1/true>".
• Added support for user-configurable and programmable action mapping system for more flexible user control over capture and playback.
• Added asynchronous screenshot support for D3D12 and ability to specify output format (JPG, BMP, PNG) to screenshot layer.
• Added ability to filter stream events by queue.
• Added new Callable::Argument() function to allow for requesting output parameters from callables.
• Added support for side-by-side installations of multiple versions of the Intel(R) GPA Framework.
• Improved feature set of D3D12 stream analysis including:
  • Added ability to extract D3D12 metadata (information associated with the resource) via MetadataExtractor such as buffers, textures, pipelines, shaders, etc.
  • Added ability to extract texture resource data from render targets, resolves, clears, copies and barriers.
  • Added support for metric collection via MetricsExtractor.
• Improved resource data and metadata extraction. New improved interfaces and a compatibility layer have been added to help ease the transition from previous interfaces.
• Improved status reporting of capture events in HUD layer as well as ability to issue custom HUD message events from user created layers.
• Misc. bug fixes affecting capture, playback and stream analysis of several titles.

Release Notes

OVERVIEW

What's New

Intel GPA 2019 R3 includes functional and security updates. Users should update to the latest version.

Intel GPA 2019 R3 offers the following new features:

New Features for Analyzing All Graphics APIs

All Tools

• Added User Interface scaling with small, medium, and large scales available.

Graphics Frame Analyzer

• Added new view modes for output resources. An original view shows the render target without applied experiments, the current view shows the resource with applied experiments, and the diff view shows the difference between the current and original states.
• Added the ability to open frames and streams from outside of the default folder DocumentsGPA.
• Added Multiframe View improvements:
  • The ability to enable frame screenshots to navigate with ease within a stream (this feature is only fully supported for Vulkan applications, the feature is in beta for DirectX applications)
  • GPU Time has replaced the CPU Frame Time metric.
  • Intel® GPU hardware system-wide time-based metrics are available to be collected during stream capture and viewed as separate tracks within Multiframe View.

Graphics Trace Analyzer

• Labels for queue packages are shown by default
• Open Trace Capture Window improvements:
  • Graphics Monitor can be launched directly from the window to capture traces.
  • Favorite traces can be pinned at the top of the window, making them quick within reach.
  • Selected trace can be shown in file explorer.
  • Traces can be opened from non-default folders.

Graphics Monitor

• Added Capture File Location setting to customize frame, stream, or trace storage location.

New Features for Analyzing Microsoft DirectX 11* Applications

Graphics Trace Analyzer

• Added a new event track called Parallel Event Execution that shows the accurate execution of GPU-intensive calls, such as draws and dispatch call. This feature is only support on Intel® Core™ Processors that are 6th generation or newer and is not supported on any Skull Canyon hardware.

New Features for Analyzing Microsoft DirectX 12* Applications

Graphics Frame Analyzer

• DXIL shader code
• Added ExecuteCommandLists as a frame delimiter to support off-screen applications.

New Features for Intel® GPA Framework 

(Previously known as Intel® GPA SDK)

• Added the ability to replay a range of callables for Direct3D12 streams.
• Added Vulkan* Pipeline Statistics Timestamp Query Manager support. Query Manager will default to the Vulkan* Pipeline Statistics Timestamp Query Manager if Intel metrics aren't found and can be specified programmatically.
• Added a new event/message dispatch system for communication between decoupled systems, this enables inter-layer communication.
• Added support for Vulkan SDK 1.1.114.
• Added ability to gather screenshots on a time interval via the screenshot layer.
• Added support for reflection of unions. A new Union class type is available to examine Arguments and Fields of this type.
• Added support for asynchronous GPU-CPU image copy. This setting can be toggled with the layer parameter "async=true/false"
• Added #PROC and #PID wildcards to log file path layer parameter. This will replace the wildcards with the process name or process ID respectively.
• Changed format of screenshot layer args to accept more flexible range specification.
• Removed reference to TlsRef parameter from all dispatch-table function types. LAYER_PREAMBLE macro is no longer required to be executed by the layers.

Release Notes

OVERVIEW

What's New

Intel GPA 2019 R2 includes functional and security updates. Users should update to the latest version.

Intel GPA 2019 R2 offers the following new features:

New Features for Analyzing All Graphics APIs

All Tools

• Support for 10th Generation Intel® Core™ Processors 

Graphics Trace Analyzer

• Additional information for GPU/CPU queue packages
• Application-defined thread names

New Features for Analyzing Vulkan* Applications

Graphics Frame Analyzer

• Support for Ubuntu*, read the enabling instructions to view metrics on Ubuntu platforms
• Off-screen stream playback 
• Queue calls in the Graphics Frame Analyzer Multiframe View
• Ability to open contiguous ranges of queue calls in the Graphics Frame Analyzer Multiframe View
• Remote stream analysis
• View and modify SPIR-V and HLSL code
• View Additional Resource Types:
  • Multisample textures
  • Stencil buffers
  • Sampler state

New Features for Analyzing Microsoft DirectX* 12 Applications

Graphics Frame Analyzer

• Stream capture with Key Framing
• Variable Rate Shading Tier1
• Primitive Replication Tier1
• Render Passes

Release Notes

OVERVIEW

What's New

Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel® GPA) 2019 R1 includes functional and security updates. Users should update to the latest version.

Intel® GPA 2019 R1 offers the following new features:

New Features for Analyzing All Graphics APIs

All Tools

• Feedback form
• Search fields history

Graphics Monitor

• Real-time metrics collection in the console interface

Graphics Frame Analyzer

• Python-based Graphics Frame Analyzer Plugins interface to search for frames, API calls, and resources

 Graphics Trace Analyzer

• Collection and display of system wide fine-grained metrics on the Timeline ruler
• Support of ETW events from Unity
• Single click selection for events
• Bookmarks on the Timeline ruler
• Configurable track height
• Automatic scaling for metric charts

New Features for Analyzing Microsoft DirectX* Applications

Graphics Monitor

• Stream capture of DirectX 11 applications

Heads-up Display

• Display of a graphics adapter name which is used by an active DXGI swap chain

Graphics Frame Analyzer

• Stream capture of DirectX 11 applications from the Create Frame Capture window
• Multiframe View for DirectX 11 Streams [Technical Preview]
• Visual Wireframe experiment for selected draw calls
• DirectX 12 Variable Rate Shading

New Features for Analyzing Vulkan* Applications on Windows

Graphics Monitor

• Stream capture of Vulkan applications

Graphics Frame Analyzer

• Stream capture of Vulkan applications from the Create Frame Capture window
• Multiframe View for Vulkan Streams [Technical Preview]
• Basic set of single-frame profiling features

Graphics Trace Analyzer

• Support for Vulkan applications trace capture

New Features for Analyzing macOS Metal* Applications

Graphics Frame Analyzer

• Multiframe View for Metal Streams [Technical Preview]

New Features for Analyzing OpenGL* Applications

Graphics Frame Analyzer

• New resource tracing model

Release Notes

OVERVIEW

• Trace Analyzer user interface improves your profiling workflow with the addition of a customizable workspace, less capture overhead, and more detailed traces.
• Graphics Monitor now intelligently determines which API is currently being profiled and speeds up the process needed to launch a title for analysis.
• Open Frame Capture window in Frame Analyzer allows you to quickly share a frame and store it in a more accessible location using the new Show Frame in Folder button.

Release Notes

OVERVIEW

• Filter resources to only view necessary information during analysis using the Resource Table View in Frame Analyzer.
• Quickly view a summary of the predominant bottlenecks affecting a frame by changing the color coding of the bar chart.
• Validate the performance and visual impact of using different texture formats within a scene by changing the selected format in the Resource Viewer.

Release Notes

OVERVIEW

• View all available Intel® GPU metrics metrics in System View on Windows* Platforms, with an ability to switch between these counter sets using the Ctrl+M hotkey.
• Search for and pin interesting metrics to the top of the metrics table.
• Copy resource names in the Resource Viewer using CTRL+C.

Release Notes

OVERVIEW

• API Log pane now contains a new Frame Statistic tab, and separate tabs for Resource History and Pixel History. The Resource History tab enables you to select a target resource, and in the Pixel History tab you can select pixel coordinates.
• Input/Output Geometry viewer now provides additional information about the topology, primitive count, and bounding box.
• New User Interface for DirectX* 11 frames.

Release Notes

OVERVIEW

• Profile Windows Mixed Reality applications on the Windows Fall Creators update.
• New User Interface for DirectX 11 frames with additional features.
• Hotspot Analysis mode available for DirectX 12 and DirectX 11 (new UI) frames. Users can now easily find the most problematic events in a frame by bottleneck.

Release Notes

OVERVIEW

• Trace Analyzer now is the only timeline tool in Graphics Performance Analyzers suite. Platform Analyzer tool has been removed. API Log and Metrics can be exported now.
• The accuracy of time-based GPU metrics in System Analyzer has been significantly improved.
• Support for Windows Mixed Reality titles in simulation mode added.

Release Notes

OVERVIEW

• Runtime overhead was improved for Windows* applications.
• Graphics Monitor has been implemented for macOS* and Ubuntu* platforms. It has the same functionality as the Windows* version excluding support for Tracing and Triggers.
• System Analyzer HUD for OpenGL* applications implemented.

Release Notes

OVERVIEW

• Improved workflow for opening trace files. Added a new trace file open dialog which includes trace file previews and system information.
• The Metrics Viewer now shows primary or potential bottlenecks with detailed descriptions for a current selection.
• The GPGPU pipeline was added into the Metrics Viewer to support bottleneck analysis for Dispatch calls.

Release Notes

OVERVIEW

• Bar Chart now supports grouping draw calls by regions (debug regions, shader usage, etc.) for Microsoft DirectX* 12 and OpenGL* APIs.
• Trace Analyzer is a new timeline analysis tool supplemental to Platform Analyzer. At this moment, Trace Analyzer provides the same functionality as Platform Analyzer and adds support of platform analysis of desktop OpenGL* applications on Ubuntu* systems.
• Added support for VR games (tested on HTC Vive* and Oculus Rift*).

Release Notes

OVERVIEW

• Enabled API log export into a text file.
• Added Pixel Overdraw view for render targets.
• Updated Metrics Viewer in accordance with the latest performance optimization guide.

Release Notes

OVERVIEW

• Enhanced DirectX 12 profiling capabilities by adding new product features and improving product performance.
• Enabled capturing and profiling DirectX 12 workloads on a remote system.
• Added Active API drop-down menu for switching between API types in the Preferences dialog box, to replace the Force DirectX 12 Injection checkbox.

Release Notes

OVERVIEW

• Intel GPA now stores all captured frames, traces and other important files in a single GPA folder under Documents on Windows, or Home on Ubuntu/OS X, irrespective of the product version. Now you do not need to repeatedly copy files and change settings each time Intel GPA is updated.
• Graphics Frame Analyzer tools got renamed. If you would like to profile Microsoft DirectX* 9, 10, 11 frames, you should use “Graphics Frame Analyzer (DirectX 9,10,11)” tool. In case you need to profile OpenGL*, OpenGL ES or DirectX 12 applications, use “Graphics Frame Analyzer”.
• Detailed GPU hardware metrics for Intel® graphics. For third-party GPUs, GPU Duration and graphics pipeline statistics metrics are available.