What's Next

Here's what to expect in upcoming releases of PIX for Windows.

Draw call timing for single-frame captures

PIX will calculate GPU-side timing information for Direct3D 9 and Direct3D 10 draw calls when performing single-frame captures or during playback.

Improved 32/64-bit support

PIX will have improved 64-bit support and cross-platform compatibility. We have fixed some issues with captures of 64-bit applications. Run files can be played back on either platform regardless of whether the original application was 32-bit or 64-bit. By using the 64-bit version of PIX to analyze your application, you can take advantage of the larger address-space available on 64-bit Windows and reduce the chance of running out of memory.

Improved application support

PIX will have improved support for applications that call both Direct3D 9 and Direct3D 10. It will also be able to safely capture data from multithreaded applications.

Output Messages tab

A new Output Messages tab will be available to better expose debug output from the Render, Mesh, and Shader views. You will be able to filter messages by view and sort them by event ID, timestamp, and type, as well as copy them to the clipboard.

Render tab

As you move through the draw calls in a run file, the Render view continues to display the back buffer on Present calls, but for other calls it now displays the currently-bound render target. Also, the status bar will show the surface format information. In addition, pencil icons appear on all the tabs of surfaces or textures that are currently bound to the device as render targets.

Buffer Data view

The performance of the Buffer Data view will be significantly improved. Large buffers are no longer painfully slow to examine.

Summary

PIX for Windows is an incredibly useful tool for analyzing Direct3D applications. The new improvements to PIX in June 2008 make it even more valuable for identifying performance bottlenecks and deeply understanding how Direct3D is behaving in the context of your application.

The PIX for Windows team has made huge strides in improving the performance of PIX, adding new support for Direct3D 10, and making it a robust tool for everyday usage. Expect continuing improvements to PIX in the near future.

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Community

Microsoft Discussion Groups: DirectX Graphics