Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers 2014 R1 Release Notes

Thank you for choosing the Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel® GPA).

What's New in Intel® GPA 2014 R1

General

Intel® GPA Platform Analyzer

The legacy Intel® GPA Platform Analyzer has been replaced with a new version supporting both Android* and Windows* OS workloads. For a breakdown of new features, see the Intel® GPA Overview section below.

Intel GPA for Android* OS

Intel GPA System Analyzer

• By default, Intel GPA now installs to a new path on Windows* OS: C:\Intel\INDE\GPA\
• The tool now supports Android 4.4 on devices based on the Intel® processor codenamed Bay Trail.
• The System View can now show metrics on 8" tablets based on the Intel® processor codenamed Bay Trail using recent Android 4.4 system images.

Intel GPA Frame Analyzer

• The glFinish and glFlush calls are no longer tracked as Ergs, to avoid incorrect processing of these calls as draw calls for asset exploration and experiments.
• You can now open frames that use compressed texture formats not supported by the device such as GL_PALETTE_RGBA8_OES.
• You can now open frames with the number of uniform vectors used in the frame exceeding the device limit.
• The tool now supports glBindVertexArrayOES, which resolved an application crash when analyzing workloads utilizing this method.

Intel GPA for Windows* OS

Intel GPA System Analyzer

• Added IP address whitelist feature enhances security for connections between Windows* OS client and target systems.

Intel GPA Frame Analyzer

• Added IP address whitelist feature enhances security for connections between Windows* OS client and target systems.
• Fixed a defect that caused an infinite loop when analyzing applications with Intel GPA.

Intel GPA Overview

Intel Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel GPA) is a suite of tools for graphics analysis and optimization that can help you make games and other graphics-intensive applications run even faster. Intel GPA supports the platforms based on the latest generations of Intel Core™ and Intel Atom™ processor families, for applications developed for either Windows* OS or Android*.

Intel GPA provides a common and integrated user interface for collecting performance data. Using Intel GPA, you can quickly see performance opportunities in your application, saving your time and getting your product to market faster.

For analyzing games running on Windows* OS platforms, Intel GPA provides the following components:

• Intel GPA Monitor: enables you to launch applications, automatically detect launched applications, set tracing options, configure Heads-Up Display mode, and set keyboard shortcuts. With the Intel GPA Monitor, you can set up a trigger of a certain profile and enable domains that you wish to trace.
• Intel GPA System Analyzer HUD (Heads-Up Display): collects and displays hardware and software metrics data from your application in real time, and enables experimentation via Microsoft* Direct3D pipeline state overrides. Use this tool to understand the high-level performance profile of your graphics application, and determine whether your application is CPU-bound or GPU-bound.
  • For a GPU-bound application, use the Intel GPA Frame Analyzer to analyze a captured frame with a low frame rate.
  • For a CPU-bound application, use the Intel GPA Platform Analyzer to show how the various CPU tasks within your application are executed.

• Intel GPA System Analyzer: This remote version of the Intel GPA System Analyzer HUD allows client/target analysis over a network connection, enabling minimum overhead on platforms with limited resources such as smartphones, netbooks, and Ultrabook™ devices. You can also use the Intel GPA System Analyzer for local profiling with dual monitors or non-full screen applications. It provides some additional features over the HUD, including the ability to graph more metrics simultaneously, and convenient drag and drop functionality for adding new metrics.
• 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 draw call level. It enables detailed analysis and "what if" optimization experiments without the need to recompile or rebuild your application.
• Intel GPA Platform Analyzer: This new version of the Intel® GPA Platform Analyzer becomes the default tool for timeline analysis. The new Intel® GPA Platform Analyzer has similar functionality to the original product and includes some additional features. With the new Intel® GPA Platform Analyzer you can:
  • Explore GPU usage per process at each moment of time.
  • Correlate CPU and GPU activity and identify whether your application is GPU or CPU bound.
  • Explore your application performance for user tasks created with Intel ITT API.
  • Identify GPU and CPU application frame rate.
  • Explore the performance of your application per selected GPU metrics over time.
  • Use the GPU Queue representation to analyze a software queue for GPU engines at each moment of time.
  • Use VSync markers to see how game rendering is aligned with VSync events. This newly-added feature is useful for profiling latency-critical applications, since you can clearly see if frame is rendered during the VSync interval.
  • Use CPU context switches to check CPU threads execution over time: see when a thread is active and when it is waiting for a synchronization object.
  • Correlate Intel® GPA System Analyzer HUD metrics represented as graph charts with other data.

For analyzing games running on Android* platforms, Intel GPA offers the following components:

• Intel GPA System Analyzer: Intel GPA System Analyzer for Android* devices is intended for optimizing OpenGL* ES workloads. When connected to an Android* device, the Intel GPA System Analyzer provides OpenGL* ES API, CPU, and GPU performance metrics, as well as multiple graphics pipeline state overrides that can help you analyze OpenGL* ES application performance.
• Intel GPA Frame Analyzer: Intel GPA Frame Analyzer for Android* devices allows deep analysis of OpenGL* ES games for Android*.
• Intel GPA Platform Analyzer: Intel GPA Platform Analyzer for Android* devices allows deep analysis of OpenGL* ES games for Android* devices based on the Intel® Atom™ processors based on either the microarchitecture codenamed Baytrail and PowerVR* Graphics from a Windows* OS analysis system. You cannot use this tool on Ubuntu* OS or OS X* analysis systems.
  • Explore GPU usage per process at each moment of time.
  • Correlate CPU and GPU activity and identify whether your application is GPU or CPU bound.
  • Analyze OpenGL* ES calls (draw calls, buffer locks, resource updates, presents).
  • Explore your application performance for user tasks created with Intel ITT API.
  • Identify GPU frame rate.
  • Explore the performance of your application per selected GPU metrics over time.

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

• Intel GPA Online Help for Windows* OS Analysis Platforms
• Intel GPA Online Help for OS* X Analysis Platforms
• Intel GPA Online Help for Ubuntu* OS Analysis Platforms
• 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 systems used to analyze Windows* OS or Android* workloads are: Intel® Core™ Processor with a minimum of 2GB of memory. At least 4GB of memory is highly recommended. To do frame profiling you need a Windows* 64-bit OS installed.

• Client Processor: Intel® Core™ Processor
• Target Processor: 1.6GHz
• System Memory: 2GB RAM (4GB recommended)
• Video Memory: 512MB RAM
• Minimum resolution: 1280x1024
• Disk Space: 300MB for minimal product installation

The table below shows platforms and applications supported by Intel GPA 2014 R1.

Target Platform (the system where your game runs)	Client Platform (your analysis system)	Target Application (types of supported applications running on the target platform)
Windows* 7 SP1 OS	Windows* 7 SP1/8/8.1 OS	Microsoft* DirectX* 9/9Ex, 10.0/10.1, 11
Windows* 8/8.1 OS	Windows* 7 SP1/8/8.1 OS	Microsoft* DirectX* 9/9Ex, 10.0/10.1, 11 or Windows* 8/8.1 Store Applications
Google* Android* 4.0, 4.1, 4.2, 4.4 (Intel® Atom™ based phones and devices based on the Intel processor codenamed Bay Trail)	Windows* 7 SP1/8/8.1 OS or OS X* 10.7, 10.8   or Ubuntu* OS 11.10, 12.04	OpenGL* ES 1.0, 1.1, 2.0

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)
• Intel HD Graphics 4200/4400/4600/5000 (4th Generation Intel Core™ Processors)
• Intel Iris™ Graphics 5100 (4th Generation Intel Core™ Processors)
• Intel Iris™ Pro Graphics 5200 (4th 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.

Check also known issues and limitations for operating system support and platform and device support.

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/.

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

Windows* OS Client Specifics

Installing Intel GPA on Windows* OS Target and Client Platforms

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)

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 refer to Intel GPA Updates on Windows* OS.

Intel GPA Frame Analyzer for Android* Applications

Intel GPA Frame Analyzer for Android* devices based on Intel processor codenamed Bay Trail enables you to perform deep analysis of OpenGL* ES games for Android*.

Performing Frame Analysis on Android* Devices

Please follow the instructions below to start analyzing your Android* application.

1. Install Intel GPA to the default directory.
2. Connect the device to your system. Note that the device must be connected at all times.
3. Run the Intel GPA Monitor, if it is not already running.
4. Run the Intel GPA System Analyzer from the Windows* Start menu or Windows* 8 Application View.
5. Connect to the device via the Intel GPA System Analyzer.
6. Using the Intel GPA System Analyzer, select the target application from the list of applications on the device.
7. Create a frame capture file: click the Frame Capture Icon , or use the hotkey Ctrl+Shift+C.
8. Close the Intel GPA System Analyzer.
9. Open the Intel GPA Frame Analyzer.
10. Select the created frame capture file from the Open dialog box.
11. Ensure your device is correctly selected as the device to test against in the dialog box.
12. Open the frame capture file in Intel GPA Frame Analyzer.

Note: The device must be connected to your analysis system at all times when you create a frame capture file with the Intel GPA System Analyzer and analyze a frame capture file with the Intel GPA Frame Analyzer.

Ubuntu* OS Client Specifics

Installing Intel GPA on Ubuntu* OS Client 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_14.1_m32.deb.shar.
   • Execute the .shar file by running the command ./intel-gpa_14.1_m32.deb.shar.
3. For an x64 system:
   • Change file permissions by running the command chmod 755 intel-gpa_14.1_m64.deb.shar
   • Execute the .shar file by running the command ./intel-gpa_14.1_m64.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

For details refer to Intel GPA Updates on Ubuntu* OS.

OS* X Client Specifics

Installing Intel GPA on OS X* Client Platform

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

1. Mount the disk image SystemAnalyzer.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.
   A new Finder window will appear.

3. 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 the Intel GPA System Analyzer.

Updating Intel GPA

For details refer to Intel GPA Updates on OS* X.

Analyzing Android* OS Applications

To get started with the Intel GPA on Android* OS, refer to the Intel GPA Help section "Analyzing Android* OS Applications" .

To use the Intel GPA System Analyzer on Android* OS devices devices based on Intel® architecture, you need:

• A mobile device with Android* OS based on Intel® architecture.
• The latest version of Android* SDK installed on the client system.
• Successfully established Android* Debug Bridge (adb) USB connection between the Android* 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 client 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

Operating System Support

• Intel GPA does not support profiling browsers on the Android OS.
• Intel GPA Frame Analyzer is no longer supported on 32-bit versions of Windows* 7 and Windows* 8/8.1 OS. The installation package will not install this application when a 32-bit Windows* OS is detected.
• 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.
• For Windows* 8 Store Applications, Intel GPA System Analyzer cannot create frame capture and trace capture files.
• Secure Boot, also known as Trusted Boot, is a new security feature in Windows* 8 enabled in BIOS settings which can cause unpredictable behavior when the "Auto-detect launched applications" option is enabled in Intel GPA Monitor Preferences. Disable Secure Boot in the BIOS to use the auto-detection feature for analyzing application performance with Intel GPA.

Platform and Device Support

• 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.
• Intel GPA System Analyzer and Intel GPA Frame Analyzer supports Android* tablets based on the Intel processor codenamed Bay Trail.
• Intel Atom™ based phones that have been validated with Intel GPA System Analyzer are:
  • MegaFon Mint*
  • Orange San Diego*
  • Lava XOLO X900*
  • Lenovo K800*
  • Motorola RAZR I*
  • Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1
• Third party Android* OS devices are unsupported. You should not attempt to run Intel GPA on unsupported Android* OS devices.

Intel GPA Frame Analyzer for Android* Applications

• Intel GPA Frame Analyzer for Android* is only targeted for devices based on Intel processor codenamed Bay Trail. It may work in some limited capability with other Intel devices, but will not have metrics information that comes from the device, and may crash on some workloads.
• Intel GPA Frame Analyzer for Android* is currently supported on Windows* OS 64-bit systems only. Please use a Windows* OS 64-bit development system when analyzing workloads on devices based on Intel processor codenamed Bay Trail.

Intel GPA for Windows* OS Target and Analysis Platforms

• You can use GPA to analyze a variety of hardware-accelerated content running in common browsers such as Microsoft* Internet Explorer* 9, Google* Chrome*, and Mozilla* Firefox*. For the latest details on browser support include browser versions, see Optimizing Graphics-Rich Web Content.

General

• To ensure accurate measurements on platforms based on Intel® HD Graphics, 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 you 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
• To view the full metric set with Intel GPA for Intel Processor Graphics on systems with one or more third-party graphics device(s) and platforms based on Intel® HD Graphics, ensure that Intel is the preferred graphics processor. You can set this in the Control Panel application for the 3rd party hardware. Applications running under Intel GPA and a third-party device show GPU metrics on DirectX* 9 as initialized to 0 and on DirectX* 10/11 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 third-party 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 interferes 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 analysis 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
  • applications that use the Reference D3D Device
  • Windows* Store Applications running on Windows* 8 OS
• 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 Microsoft 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* analysis systems.
• Intel GPA does not support Windows* 8 OS Store Applications written in HTML5..
• Intel GPA does not support use of Remote Desktop Connection.
• If you are linking against the dynamic library version of Intel® GPA DirectTrace SDK (DirectTrace.dll) or Intel® ITT (gpasdk_d.lib) libraries and are using an older version of Microsoft Visual Studio such as 2008 or 2005, you must have the following Microsoft Windows security hotfixes installed:
  • Visual Studio 2005: KB2538218
  • Visual Studio 2008: KB2538241

  If upgrading to a more recent Visual Studio version is not possible, and you are unable to update to use the following hotfixes, you must link against the static library (DirectTrace.lib and/or gpasdk_s.lib).

Intel GPA Frame Analyzer

• In some cases, the Overview tab in Frame Analyzer can present GPU Duration values higher than Frame Duration values measured during game run time. There are two reasons for this:
  • On Intel® HD Graphics 2500/4000/4200/4400/4600/5000 and Intel® Iris and Iris Pro graphics, driver version 15.31.3131 has an issue that prevents the GPU from running at Turbo frequency on the target machine during the Frame Analyzer session. This issue was resolved as of internal driver version 15.31.3186. Stay tuned for driver updates at: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/.
  • Frame Analyzer plays the captured frame back in off-screen mode which can be slower than on-screen rendering done in the game.

  To get more precise GPU Duration measurements we recommend using the driver version 15.31.3177 or higher. It will make the GPU run at Turbo frequency during frame analysis.

  To make playback run on-screen use this registry setting on the Target system: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Intel\GPA\14.1\ForceOnScreenPlaybackForRemoteFA = 1 and connect to the target with Frame Analyzer running on a separate host. If these requirements are met then the playback will run in off-screen mode on the target. If the frame was captured from the full-screen game, but playback renders it in a windowed mode, then try to use Alt+Enter on the target to switch playback to full-screen mode.

• Intel GPA Frame Analyzer runs best on 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 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.