Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers User Guide

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ID 767266
Date 9/28/2023
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Document Table of Contents
Document Table of Contents x
Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers User Guide
Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers User Guide x
Introduction to Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers Game Optimization Methodology Install and Launch Intel® GPA Enable GPU Metrics Collection Launch Application for Analysis Configure Analysis Settings Analyze Desktop Graphics Applications Quick Start with Profiling Unreal Engine* Games Instrumentation and Tracing Technology API Support Intel® GPA Reference Notices and Disclaimers
Introduction to Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers x
Get Help
Launch Application for Analysis x
Start a Desktop Application with Graphics Monitor Start a Windows* Mixed Reality Application Connect to a Running Application (Windows* only) Analyze Applications in the Network Mode
Configure Analysis Settings x
Configure a Metric Set Customize Keyboard Shortcuts Set Up a Trigger Set Up Tracing Options Set Up Stream Options Set Frame Delimiters
Analyze Desktop Graphics Applications x
Manage Analysis with Graphics Monitor Monitor Real-Time Performance with System Analyzer Identify Issues in Graphics Application Execution with Trace Analyzer Analyze GPU-bound Applications with Graphics Frame Analyzer Optimize Specific Domains
Monitor Real-Time Performance with System Analyzer x
Pause and Resume a Running Application Export Metrics Data with System Analyzer
Analyze GPU-bound Applications with Graphics Frame Analyzer x
Run Render State Experiments with Frame Analyzer Use Advanced Profiling Mode Graphics Frame Analyzer Plugins
Graphics Frame Analyzer Plugins x
Create a Custom Plugin for Graphics Frame Analyzer
Optimize Specific Domains x
Optimize Shaders Analyze Textures Minimize Overdraw Optimize Graphic API States Identify Graphics Elements with Complex Geometry Visualize Color Distribution See Also
Instrumentation and Tracing Technology API Support x
Compile and Link with ITT API Instrument Your Application Minimize ITT API Overhead Clock Domain API Counter API Domain API Marker API Metadata API Relation API String Handle API Thread Naming API Task API
Intel® GPA Reference x
Performance Metrics Reference User Interface Reference
Performance Metrics Reference x
CPU Metrics Device I/O Metrics GPU Metrics Graphics API Metrics Memory Metrics
User Interface Reference x
Graphics Monitor UI Reference Heads-Up Display (HUD) UI Reference System Analyzer UI Reference Graphics Frame Analyzer UI Reference Graphics Trace Analyzer UI Reference
Graphics Monitor UI Reference x
Graphics Monitor Context Menu Graphics Monitor Configuration Window Graphics Monitor Control Panel Graphics Monitor Window: Desktop Applications Tab Graphics Monitor Window: Universal Windows Applications Tab (Windows* only) Graphics Monitor Window: Options Dialog Box
Graphics Frame Analyzer UI Reference x
Graphics Frame Analyzer Window: Open Frame Capture Graphics Frame Analyzer Window: Multiframe View Graphics Frame Analyzer Window: Profiling View Graphics Frame Analyzer Window: Dependency Viewer
Graphics Frame Analyzer Window: Profiling View x
Main Toolbar Visualization Pane API Log Pane Resources Pane Metrics Pane Experiments Pane
Graphics Trace Analyzer UI Reference x
Graphics Trace Analyzer Window: Open Trace Capture Graphics Trace Analyzer Window: Platform View
Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers User Guide

Visualize Color Distribution

Investigate the texture color data using the color histogram in Graphics Frame Analyzer. Such analysis is useful for debugging and helps you to check whether your shading algorithms work as expected.

Depending on the format type, the pixel values of your texture or render target have different default ranges:

  • For floating-point texture formats, the default range is [0, 1].
  • For integer formats, the range spans from the minimum to the maximum value.

If the pixel values you are interested in lie within a range much smaller than default, it's hard to see the details of the image with the naked eye. In this case, try the following:

  1. Select the texture or render target from the list of resources and click the button to open the histogram.

    You can see color intensity values on the X-axis, and the number of pixels with the given intensity on the Y-axis.

  2. Analyze color distribution within the frame. Hover over the image to see the pixel values below. On the right, you can also see:
    • Original values used to store pixel information in memory - the same as shown below the image, but in a more precise format.
    • Normalized values used in shaders.


  3. Drill down to the color range you are interested in:
    • Select it in the histogram
    • Type the threshold pixel values below the histogram


    The image updates to show the data for the selected range only.

    You can also navigate inside the histogram:

    • Zoom in/out of the selected range using the mouse wheel.
    • Scroll left/right by clicking and dragging the mouse while holding Ctrl.

  4. If required for better visualization, toggle between available channels and channel configurations:
    • RGB mode includes all main color channels. RGBA and SRGBA also include alpha channel. SRGB and SRGBA also include gamma correction.
    • Red/Green/Blue color channels show the image information in red/green/blue color plane.

      This is useful to investigate each color channel separately when they contain different data. For example, one of the channels may be responsible for smoothness of rendered objects, and therefore their ability to reflect light.

    • Alpha channel is a grayscale conversion of the alpha data of the buffer.

      With alpha channel, you can analyze transparency of rendered objects.

    For non-RGB(A) images, the first available channel is selected. For example, the Depth plane is selected by default for Depth and Depth-Stencil textures.
  5. Click the Reset button to return the histogram to the full view and select a different range, if needed.

If the pixel values of your floating-point texture/render target lie outside the default range [0, 1], you may not see some parts of the image. Using the histogram, you can detect the actual range, and then drill down to the sub-range of interest:

  • Open the histogram for the selected texture/render target.

    Since the RGB mode shows the default color range, some of the data is not displayed.

  • Select the color channel with the widest range and click Reset.

    The histogram updates to include the entire available range.

  • Change the color channel back to the RGB mode.

    Switching color channels does not affect the range selection, so you can now view the full image with the actual range selected.

NOTE:
When analyzing textures/render targets that use 5-6-5 or similar formats, remember that color channels have different ranges, whish are not updated automatically:

  • [0, 32] for the Red channel
  • [0, 64] for the Green channel
  • [0, 32] for the Blue channel

Since the data from Red, Green, and Blue channels is taken in different proportions for calculating intensity values in RGB mode, peak values in the histogram for RGB mode do not coincide with those for separate color planes.

Parent topic: Optimize Specific Domains
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