Does Profiling View exist on macOS?

Frank__David · ‎12-19-2018

Hi, I am trying to capture a stream from my Unity game on macOS with Metal API (no launcher involved), and with the "save stream" option, I am facing following issues: - The game appear to hang indefinitely on exit, I have to force quit. - While a GPA stream folder is created, and I can re-play the stream via Frame Analyzer or pause with F12 during re-play, I am not able to enter the "Profiling View" window. - My understanding is the "Profiling View" (a part of the Frame Analyzer UI) offer some extra options and data than "Graphics Multiframe Analyzer" (aka F12 in game). - When I "open" a captured stream, it replays the stream and allow me to pause, but the Frame Analyzer window doesn't enter "Profiling View", so where can I find it? Thx! reference: https://software.intel.com/en-us/gpa-user-guide-for-macos-host-window-profiling-view https://software.intel.com/en-us/gpa-user-guide-for-macos-host-graphics-multiframe-analyzer

Giselle_G_Intel · ‎12-20-2018

Hi David,

I'm sorry to hear that you're experiencing some issues when using GPA on macOS*. To help me understand what's going on, could you explain exactly what you are seeing when you press F12 during playback or during capture or take a screenshot? We only supporting F12 pausing on Metal, we don't support an additional Frame Analyzer view (like in OpenGL on macOS or DirectX on Windows*).

Are you seeing any sort of profiling view when you press F12 or are you seeing a grey window?

Frank__David · ‎12-20-2018

Giselle G. (Intel) wrote:

Hi David,

I'm sorry to hear that you're experiencing some issues when using GPA on macOS*. To help me understand what's going on, could you explain exactly what you are seeing when you press F12 during playback or during capture or take a screenshot? We only supporting F12 pausing on Metal, we don't support an additional Frame Analyzer view (like in OpenGL on macOS or DirectX on Windows*).

Are you seeing any sort of profiling view when you press F12 or are you seeing a grey window?

Hi Giselle, Thx for the reply, here are some screenshots to illustrate my problem: https://imgur.com/a/EeWX1of - Yes, F12 shows the Frame Analyzer in game. - I see no *additional* Frame Analyzer view as you said. But my questions: 1. Your said "We only supporting F12 pausing on Metal, we don't support an additional Frame Analyzer view", the documentation doesn't mention "additional Frame Analyzer view", it simply mention a "Frame Analyzer" and "Multi-frame Analyzer". Which one is which? 2. The whole point of capturing a stream, is to scrub between *frames* to find potential issues, but without that "additional Frame Analyzer view", I can't. I can only scrub between *draw call steps within a frame*. Which is the same thing as pausing in real-time using F12, which opens up the Frame Analyzer for current frame alone. 3. Without "additional Frame Analyzer view", my only option is to set the "Pause on frame X" in Frame Analyzer UI, but I need to know the exact frame to do that, which is difficult to determine. 4. Since we are throwing terms here, I would love to know how Intel actually name these 2 things: (A) the Frame Analyzer app (the application that manage saved streams) (B) the "Frame Analyzer" popup (when you press F12 in game or in stream) - You seem to call both "Frame Analyzer", but to me, this is confusing to say the least, because "additional Frame Analyzer view" is *a view in the app*, right? 5. For some reasons, with your latest 2018 R4 release, I am no longer able to view documentations. I am seeing "Access denied", so I apologize for not linking to documentation (I can't even access my links from OP). Thx again and I look forward to some answers :)

Giselle_G_Intel · ‎12-21-2018

Hi David,

Sorry about all the confusion, let me see if I can clarify some of this.

1&4. What you sent is what is expected in macOS. The "Frame Analyzer" that shows up when you press F12 is actually referred to as "Multiframe Analyzer" it has a different look and feel than our other "Frame Analyzer" view. "Frame Analyzer" view (as it referred to in our documentation) is only available for DX and OpenGL, while "Mutiframe Analyzer" is only available in Metal. Both of these are just different types of views within the "Frame Analyzer" tool.

2. We do see that use-case and currently have no UI to address scrubbing through the frames within Frame Analyzer to find the most problematic frames within a stream. I will make sure to voice your concerns to our engineering team, as it's always good to have additional people providing feedback about a feature that has been requested. At the moment pausing on a live stream/capture vs. playing back are essentially the same workflows.

3. For "Pause on Frame" we usually recommend you play back a stream and watch the FPS in the HUD to correlate it with a frame number that can then be provided for "Pause on Frame" feature.

5. Have you cleared your browsing data? Sometimes I get that issue as well from having some old version of the site stored in my browsing data.

Hope this helps!

Frank__David · ‎12-21-2018

Thx Giselle! Hope the doc was more clear on that front, I thought both were available. Just one final suggestion, if Intel GPA can generate a csv or a graph of FPS for a saved stream, then "Pause on Frame" option will be much easier to use. Is that available? Thx, and have a nice holiday.