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]

Just checked, and no committed "fix by" date for this yet. (sorry!)

Regards,

Neal

[richardbroadhurst]

Do you have an y updates on this please?

[Neal_Pierman]

Ric,

Thanks for the update -- as you suggest let's wait until the end of next week before trying this again.

Regards,

Neal

[Neal_Pierman]

Ric,

You have a great knack for timing things just about right...

We've just released version 3.0 -- you'll get an email about the new version in the next couple of days, so I wouldn't do anything until you've had a chance to try things with the new version of the code.

Hopefully you get better results with this new version, and we look forward to some info on your experiences using it.

Regards,

Neal

[richardbroadhurst]

Thanks, I have just installed 3.0 but am still having a few issues:

While running the same app from monitor, and then trying to capture with capture, I get a file and an error telling me that the app has quit - even thought it was because i ticked the close and analyse box.

the analyse then fails and tries to save an error report - saving the error report also says that it has failed

I also get a crash with a report/... dialog, which i report to ms.

The logs don't look very interresting:

[TAL][WIN pid=3364][ ec8] Initialize

[TAL][WIN pid=3364][ ec8] TAL collector version 2010-02-24. initialized.

[TAL][WIN pid=3364][ de4] MODE set to CONTINUOUS

or

[TAL][WIN pid=3604][ a44] Initialize

[TAL][WIN pid=3604][ a44] TAL collector version 2010-02-24. initialized.

Attached is a capture -test_2010_03_07__21_15_31.gpa_frame

This is still the same 945 with the same driver as before - no new one available.

ric

[richardbroadhurst]

DX updated to Feb 2010

adding error xmls

ric

[Neal_Pierman]

Ric

Thanks for the info -- I'll be looking at this today.

Neal

[Neal_Pierman]

Ric,

I tried playing with this a bit, and it's not clear whether the frame capture file you attached was created properly. In other words, I'm trying to see the issue is that Intel GPA Frame Capture did not correctly create the frame, or Intel GPA Frame Analyzer has an issue reading the file on your system, or neither, or both.

See the attached file (which I was able to load into Intel GPA Frame Analyzer using another graphics chipset and hardware configuration), as it looks like there may be some corruption of the background image, but I can't be sure.

So a couple more questions for you:

• is the image I've attached similar to what you see if you run your app without Intel GPA? In other words, is the background graphics that I copied here what you expect?
• is the behavior of Intel GPA Frame Capture and/or Intel GPA Frame Analyzer any different if you don't use the "close frame capture and launch frame analyzer after capture" option (but instead start Intel GPA Frame Analyzer manually)?
• is the behavior any different if you use another method to capture the frame, such as Intel GPA System Analyzer or a "hot key"?

Thanks!

Neal

[richardbroadhurst]

The corruption is correct on that image, i sent the capture with clear background turned off by mistak, you should be able to turn it on in playback and it will look like my previous 2.2 captures.

The frames captured as far as i can tell (same/similar size) are always the same regardless of capture method and regardless as to whether quit or not is selected, I would suspect the playing back is the problem (as before).

Have you tried 3.0 on the 945 you bought or tried to play back my capture on it?

ric

[Neal_Pierman]

Ok, thanks for the info... from your description and a visual examination of the capture file it wasn't clear that the issue was still with Intel GPA Frame Analyzer or in the frame capture in the first case.

Now that you've verified that the image is OK, I'll forward it to the developement team to see what they say about this problem.

Regards,

Neal

[Neal_Pierman]

Hello,

The development team has looked at this, and we believe that it may be a duplicate of a similar problem that we are already in the process of analyzing and fixing. If this is what we think, the problem is due to how we access and use the shaders in the 945 graphics chipset.

Thanks for your patience on this one!

Regards,

Neal

[richardbroadhurst]

Thanks Neal.

Any chance of xp64 support as we have upgraded a number of work machines and now can't use GPA.

ric

[Neal_Pierman]

Ric,

As you know, Windows XP (64-bit) is not supported by Intel GPA, and there are currently no plans to support this platform in future releases.

Instead, most of the game developers have requested that we focus on Windows 7 (or Vista) for 64-bit support, as Windows 7 and Vista appear to be the development platforms that most game developers are using these days, especially for 64-bit (though they'll obviously release games that run on Windows XP).

Regards,

Neal

[richardbroadhurst]

I understand; at work, our customers' primary OS is XP with win7 increasing as vista users upgrade to win7 or a few go back to XP.

[Neal_Pierman]

Ric,

Thanks for the info on XP.

I've got a couple of follow-up questions for you on your work flow:

• As you have customers running on the three primary Microsoft opsys platforms (XP*, Vista*, and Windows 7*), do you run Intel GPA for your app on all three of these platforms, or do you run Intel GPA on just one platform (and then assume that the results from Intel GPA will be similar on the other platforms)?
• Do you expect your work flow to change over time as Windows 7 eventually becomes the predominant opsys?

The reason I'm asking is having a better understand of how the tool is used will enable us to do a better job of meeting customer needs -- and hopefully you had a chance to fill out the Intel GPA survey, as the team has been reviewing the responses we've received.

Neal

[richardbroadhurst]

At work we have more than twice as many XP 32 users than all win7 (mostly 64) and twice as many of them than all Vista and others put together, so we test mostly on win7 64 and XP 32 (I have personally only run GPA on XP32).

For personal projects, I optimise for the min-spec so that I can run on the maximum configurations, with XP32/945/Atom my primary target.

For netbook / notebook, I will be sticking with 32bit/DX9feb2010 for the next couple of years and probably move on when XP drops below 15%.

Again, from a personal perspective, I can't wait for win7/.Net/wpf to be replaced with something more usable and efficient - I doubt we will ever see those days again though - win98se, dx7, vs6, win2k/XP, dx9 - maybe i have my rose tinted spec's on again.

ric

[Neal_Pierman]

Thanks for the information... I'm passing this info to the product planning team.

Regards,

Neal

[richardbroadhurst]

Any news on when the 945 might be supported?

ric

[Neal_Pierman]

Hello,

Thanks for your patience while we worked on this... There will be some limited capabilities available for this device on Vista and Win7 in an upcoming release of the product.

That's about all I can say for now, but when I have more detailed info I'll post something here.

Regards,

Neal

[Neal_Pierman]

Hello,

the latest version of Intel GPA, Version 3.0 build 117271, was just released on May 20th, 2010. This latest version includes specific updates for this class of graphics devices for Windows Vista and Windows 7 (but limitations of the XP driver preclude our being able to support this device on this platform).

Hopefully these improvements will allow many of you to use Intel GPA on this platform, so please let us know your experiences with this latest release.

Regards,

Neal