Very slow shader creation while running EXE from Visual Studio (2008)

[Ronan_Bel]

Hi, I'm trying to develop some shader code on a Sandy bridge + HD graphics 3000 hardware using Visual studio 2008 (latest version, SP, patches, drivers, SDK ...)
Running the EXE as a stand alone gives this timings

Compiling Pixel Shader ../WorldViewer/DX10\\SimuFluid_RenderSmooth_ComputeVisibilityLOD4x4.ps.hlsl
Took 1317.041662 ms
Create Took 1832.699483 ms
Compiling Pixel Shader ../WorldViewer/DX10\\SimuFluid_RenderSmooth_ComputeVisibilityLOD2x2.ps.hlsl
Took 377.944188 ms
Create Took 156.574857 ms
Compiling Pixel Shader ../WorldViewer/DX10\\SimuFluid_RenderSmooth_ComputeVisibilityLOD2x2x2.ps.hlsl
Took 672.108109 ms
Create Took 399.883245 ms
Compiling Pixel Shader ../WorldViewer/DX10\\SimuFluid_RenderSmooth_ComputeVisibilityLOD2x2x4.ps.hlsl
Took 1352.036399 ms
Create Took 1632.707879 ms

Running from VS (Release, full optimizations, anyway it's the driver's code which takes all the time)

Compiling Pixel Shader ../WorldViewer/DX10\\SimuFluid_RenderSmooth_ComputeVisibilityLOD4x4.ps.hlsl
Took 1390.279165 ms
Create Took 7952.150473 ms
Compiling Pixel Shader ../WorldViewer/DX10\\SimuFluid_RenderSmooth_ComputeVisibilityLOD2x2.ps.hlsl
Took 383.181736 ms
Create Took 3648.525213 ms
Compiling Pixel Shader ../WorldViewer/DX10\\SimuFluid_RenderSmooth_ComputeVisibilityLOD2x2x2.ps.hlsl
Took 706.142689 ms
Create Took 4018.351381 ms
Compiling Pixel Shader ../WorldViewer/DX10\\SimuFluid_RenderSmooth_ComputeVisibilityLOD2x2x4.ps.hlsl
Took 1386.748164 ms
Create Took 7980.124220 ms

the D3DCompile (Microsoft) takes about the same time running as a stand-alone EXE or launched from Visual Studio.
the Device->CreateShader (Intel) is up to 20 times longer while running from Visual Studio

which is very annoying when you spend all your day trying your shaders code.

is there a workaround to prevent it please ?

[Ronan_Bel]

Hi.
Here is a workaround :
set _NO_DEBUG_HEAP=1 in VisualStudio environment settings for the project you are working on.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ms_joc/archive/2009/02/19/why-is-my-app-so-much-slower-under-the-debugger.aspx

[SergeyKostrov]

>>...set _NO_DEBUG_HEAP=1...

He is running from Release configuration. Take a look, please:

From the 1st post:

>>...Running from VS (Release, full optimizations...

All memory management CRT-functions, like 'malloc_dbg', 'free_dbg', etc, shouldn't be called and it looks like something else affects the performance.