Hi and welcome! I'm Pamela Harrison from Intel
here to tell you about the latest Intel® GPA news and updates.
The 2021.1 release has added multiple features to Graphics Frame Analyzer,
Graphics Trace Analyzer and Intel® GPA Framework.
Summary: For this release, for Graphics Frame Analyzer we’ve made a lot of
under-the-hood enhancements that improve the quality of stream capture and playback
allowing us to enable viewing multiple frames or multiple calls
by default now for DirectX12, and by toggling for the new DirectX11 Tech Preview.
We’ve added queue call markers that mark the
execution start time for each GPU call in a command queue.
And for better clarity in the Metrics Table’s delta column
we now show the plus in addition to the minus signs.
For Graphics Trace Analyzer we hope you’ve been using and enjoying the
synchronization visualization because in this release we’ve
completed CPU thread synchronization visualization by adding WinAPI calls.
We’ve also greatly enhanced active thread zone visualization in Graphics Trace Analyzer,
and for percentage metrics we now default to show the full percentage range in each timeline track.
It was our work on Intel® GPA Framework in large part that enabled the Graphics Frame
Analyzer enhancements that I mentioned. For GPA Framework we have released a Tech Preview for
improved DirectX 11 support and significantly improved multi-frame support for DirectX 12.
In addition, we have added multi-GPU query-based metrics collection so that developers can analyze
hardware metrics for applications that run on platforms with multiple Intel GPUs.
To begin, for DirectX 12 stream captures in Graphics Frame Analyzer, because we improved
capture/playback and experiments quality, we were able to enable the selection of multiple frames or
multiple calls in a frame by default. This feature existed previously,
but without the underlying improvements, it was necessary for game developers
to go into Settings and toggle on the Multi-Frame Profiling View selection. Now there is no need to
change any settings. In Graphics Frame Analyzer, while viewing a DirectX 12 stream capture file,
click on a frame in the left panel to reveal the command queue calls, including 4 of the
most popular calls: Signal calls, Wait calls, ExecuteCommandLists calls, and Present calls.
If you select ExecuteCommandLists, which includes the render calls, and click Open, you will then
be able to analyze this subset of calls in the selected frame. If you select several frames,
then click Open, you will see in the API Log, the list of calls for all the frames you selected.
You can verify at the top which frames are included in this set of data.
This feature was not previously available for DirectX 11. But now we have added it as a Tech
Preview. For DirectX 11 you *do* need to go into settings and toggle the selection on for
Multi-Frame Profiling View. Also note that the feature set for DirectX 11 is limited.
Second, in Graphics Frame Analyzer, our team has added queue call markers to mark the start
of execution of Command Queue commands. Select a frame from the rendering Direct Queue list,
then select one of the sets of calls, say Signal, you can zoom in and see precisely
when the call started execution. These timings can be useful for helping to understand what
happens in another command queue, e.g. Compute Queue during frame rendering in the Direct Queue.
To visualize this scenario, in the Direct Queue select a frame, switch to the Compute Queue.
Here you can see that the frame is automatically highlighted in the main panel.
Then you can press Open to analyze the data collected for these calls.
Third, Graphics Trace Analyzer has also received a boost in functionality
with our highly detailed active thread zone visualization.
Notice that for every CPU thread there is a space above the thread track. We show a green
line here where a thread is actively executing, and white for when it is waiting or stalled.
Here, you can see that the normal blue color of a call coordinates with the green line,
indicating the thread is active, whereas the lighter color blue aligns with the white space,
indicating inactivity. Notice, for example, that the WaitForSingleObject call is in the lighter
color. However, if you zoom in you can see that part of that Wait call is active, it is the normal
darker blue with the normal darker text, and has the green line over just that active part.
The Wait call is active here, as expected, because the Wait call is actively initializing a Windows
object to let the operating system know that it is waiting for a particular Signal call.
And finally, some of you use our command line tool - Intel® GPA Framework. It is the
back end for our Intel® GPA GUI tools, and also available as a separate download. This is where
we did most of the work improving capture and playback and enhancing the experiments quality
that I mentioned earlier so that we could allow multi-frame viewing by default for DirectX 12.
This is also where we enabled the Tech Preview version of this feature for DirectX 11.
In addition, Intel® GPA Framework has enabled collection of the Intel Metrics Detection
library-based metrics so that developers who have platforms with multiple Intel GPUs
can analyze the hardware metrics for both GPUs.
Closing: Thank you for watching. For more information about the Intel GPA
2021.1 release and to download Intel GPA for free, see the links.
Remember to like this video and subscribe to the Intel Software YouTube channel
for more Intel® GPA news and updates.