GPA 2.2/3.0: GPA issues with 945 graphics - currently crashes Frame Analyzer

[richardbroadhurst]

I am trying to optimise my 3D app for atom/945 for the Intel Atom Developer Program but IGPA crashes when trying to analyse the captures.

Are there any plans to support 945 with IGPA or at least make it not crash?

Various configs and crash reports attached.

ric

[Neal_Pierman]

Hello Richard,

Though GPA doesn't officially support your configuration, I'll do a quick check on this.

It wasn't clear from your message what caused Frame Analyzer to abort. Did Frame Analyzer abort when loading the file, or when you attempted to perform a specific operation within this program after having successfully loaded the capture file? In any case, Frame Analyzer will usually trap the error and create an XML error report file -- please include a copy of this XML file in your reply.

Also, I took the frame capture file you supplied and was able to successfully load this into GPA Frame Analyzer on another graphics system. Therefore, I'll need some additional information from you before being able to look at this further:

• please verify that your installation of GPA works ok by seeing if you encounter similiar problems when running the gpasample.exe program (a copy of this utility can be found in the default GPA installation area)
• please provide more detailed configuration information by running the gpa_system_inspector.exe utility and attaching this file to your post (this utility is again found in the default installation area)
• to help isolate this issue, have you been able to successfully run this on other graphics systems (or if not, do you have access to another system to test this with?)

thanks!

Neal

[Neal_Pierman]

Hello,

People have been using GPA with Atom-based systems without crashing, so this is a new issue that you are seeing.

However, I thought of one more thing I just thought of that you can try. It appears that you are displaying a large amount of graphics in this scene. I'm wondering if you are running out of video memory (since GPA also requires some video memory to do its work). So your scene could render just fine normally (that is, without GPA), but when running Frame Analyzer I'm wondering if you are exceeding VRAM memory (GPA requires 512MB of VRAM for this very reason). One way to find out if VRAM is an issue in your situation is to significantly reduce the number of objects in your scene, and see if GPA works.

Please let me know what you find out.

Regards,

Neal

ps-> Also, please verify that you are not making any DX 10.1 calls (as we've found some instances where we are not able to trap all 10.1 calls).

[richardbroadhurst]

The gpasample's capture also crashes the analyser when it tries to load the file.

945 can only share up to 242MB on XP and 256MB on vista (don't know about win7).

I can't find any .xml error reports, not in program files nor where my exe is nor %APPDATA%...

System Inspector

Environment:
(Intel GPA System Inspector)
Windows XP Home Edition, 32-bit DEP disabled
Num Processors: 2
Memory: 1014MB
Driver 0:
Device: Mobile Intel 945 Express Chipset Family
Provider: Intel Corporation
Date: 2-15-2008
Version: 6.14.10.4926
VendorId: 8086
ProductId: 27a6
Stepping: 3
No support for GPA Instrumentation
Driver 1:
Device: Mobile Intel 945 Express Chipset Family
Provider: Intel Corporation
Date: 2-15-2008
Version: 6.14.10.4926
VendorId: 8086
ProductId: 27ae
Stepping: 3
No support for GPA Instrumentation
GPA install directory: C:Program FilesIntelGPA v2.2
GPA version: 2.2.93736

[Neal_Pierman]

Hello,

Thanks for the additional information.

By the fact that you can't even get the small sample program to work would make me think that vram might not be the issue here.

However, one thing I've noticed is that you are using an old graphics driver.

Download these drivers by using Microsoft Internet Explorer* to browse to the graphics driver update page. This page runs a script that examines your system configuration, then updates the Intel Integrated Graphics drivers to the latest version. If the atuomatic scan doesn't work, please try to manually download the latest driver.

So please try with this graphics driver and let me know your results.

Regards,

Neal

[richardbroadhurst]

One of the first things i tried was checking the driver, but it said (as it still does):

Product Detected Mobile Intel 945 Express Chipset Family
Current Driver Installed 6.14.0010.4926
Your driver is current.

Manually checking shows that I am on the latest driver listed (14324 from 2008).

Has anyone else with an nc10 managed to get IGPA to analyse?

[Neal_Pierman]

Ok, so it seems that most of the obvious things to check you've already taken care of. Since you can create the capture file but just not read it does provide some useful info, especially if you can't get the gpasample capture file to load.

I trying to find an NC10 internally so that we can test internally ourselves with your capture file (or if not an NC10, a similarly-configured system with the 945 gfx).

I'll let you know what I've been able to find out on this.

Thanks for your patience on this!

Regards,

Neal

ps-> Also, I'm assuming that you are running GPA in a single-system mode (that is, both Frame Analyzer and your game are running on the NC10)?

[richardbroadhurst]

Thanks for all the effort.

I am running in single system mode.

I do use IGPA at work and highly recommend it.

ric

[Neal_Pierman]

Richard,

Thanks for your patience on this; I'm still searching internally within our facility to see if someone has a similar configuration to yours. By the way, I know we have users of GPA with 945 graphics (but not a netbook configuration) and others with Atom-based netbooks (but not 945 graphics), so I'll need us to find something that's a closer match.

If I am not able to find a similar configuration within the next few days, I will look at other options for trying to get this issue resolved.

Neal

PS-> While I'm waiting for a system, would you be able to run in a dual-system mode (that is, target machine is the netbook, and run GPA System Analyzer from another system)? This is only a small chance of success (10% or so), but if you have time it might help eliminate another possible issue.

[Neal_Pierman]

Hello,

Sorry again for the delay. I've checked and we don't have a similar configuration available for testing by the GPA team, so we've ordered one for testing and it should be delivered to us this Thursday. Though not the same exact system (ours is from a different manufacturer), it has the same chipset and graphics as your configuration, so this should be sufficient for our use.

We'll start looking at this issue when the system gets here.

Last but not least, is there a specific deadline that you are working to meet? If so, I want to see what we can do to help you meet this deadline.

Regards,

Neal

[richardbroadhurst]

Sorry, I have been on other stuff.

I will try the dual mode, but probably not until thursday.

Thank you for all your effort.

This is some personal work, possiblyfor the IADP, so no immediate hurry.

Thanks,

ric

[richardbroadhurst]

I tried the remote option and that is the same, failing and then loosing connection.

ric

[Neal_Pierman]

Ric,

Thanks for the info... I'll pass this along to the team.

Regards,

Neal

[doyoulikethreads]

I get the same results on my netbook:
- Win7 Ultimate 32-bit
- Atom N270
- Mobile Intel 945 (driver 8.15.10.1930)

I can run the DX9 samples just fine. However, gpasample.exe does not run. Remotely running system analyzer does work... but frame captures cause crashes.

Thanks for any help!!

[Neal_Pierman]

Quoting - doyoulikethreads

I get the same results on my netbook:
- Win7 Ultimate 32-bit
- Atom N270
- Mobile Intel 945 (driver 8.15.10.1930)

I can run the DX9 samples just fine. However, gpasample.exe does not run. Remotely running system analyzer does work... but frame captures cause crashes.

Hello,

When you say that you can run the DX9 samples OK, do you mean that you are able to run the DX9 samples OK with GPA System Analyzer, and then save a capture file and load it ok into GPA Frame Analyzer?

Though you are having problems with gpasample with GPA (GPA System Analyzer crashes when creating a capture file), are you able to run gpasample without GPA?

Thanks in advance for providing the additional info I'm requesting.

Regards,

Neal

[doyoulikethreads]

Quoting - Neal P (Intel)

Hello,

When you say that you can run the DX9 samples OK, do you mean that you are able to run the DX9 samples OK with GPA System Analyzer, and then save a capture file and load it ok into GPA Frame Analyzer?

Though you are having problems with gpasample with GPA (GPA System Analyzer crashes when creating a capture file), are you able to run gpasample without GPA?

Thanks in advance for providing the additional info I'm requesting.

Regards,

Neal

I can not get frame capture to work with anything. The DX samples successfully starts up and runs (with or without system analyzer). I can run system analyzer (remotely only) on the DX samples. The gpasample will not run at all (with or without system analyzer).

I get the same behavior for frame capture as richard.broadhurst;it mostly crashes and I can create a frame capture file every now and again... but it doesn't load into frame analyzer.

[Neal_Pierman]

Hello,

Thanks for the info... this is very helpful information!

Regards,

Neal

[doyoulikethreads]

Has there been any progress on this topic? Thanks!

[Neal_Pierman]

Quoting - doyoulikethreads

Has there been any progress on this topic? Thanks!

Here's an update on what's been happening on this...

First of all, over the holidays we acquired a netbook system similar in configuration to the ones noted here, and we've been able to duplicate the problem you encountered.

It appears that the GPA code has embedded some timeouts in various places in case certain operations take longer than expected. Unfortunately, with these netbooks we are finding that various operations are in fact taking longer than we expect, so the timeout causes the error which we are reporting.

The development team is in the process of re-evaluating all the places where we check for timeouts to verify whether these values are (a) reasonable and/or (b) needed at all.

I'll be getting back to you once this evaluation has been completed.

Thanks for your patience on this issue!

Regards,

Neal

[richardbroadhurst]

Any chance this will be ready for DevMob2010?

[Neal_Pierman]

I'll check with the development team on the current status of this item.

Regards,

Neal