Summary: NVIDIA Nsight Graphics 2019.4 is a powerful tool designed to help developers optimize and debug their graphics applications. This release includes several key enhancements and new features, such as support for profiling OpenGL applications on Turing-based GPUs with the Range Profiler, resource barrier visualization in GPU Trace, and the porting of the Acceleration Structure Viewer to Linux. These updates aim to provide developers with deeper insights into their applications’ performance and help them identify areas for improvement.
Nsight Graphics 2019.4: Unlocking Deeper Insights for Graphics Developers
Enhancements and New Features
Range Profiler: Profiling OpenGL Applications on Turing-Based GPUs
NVIDIA Nsight Graphics 2019.4 introduces support for profiling OpenGL applications on Turing-based GPUs with the Range Profiler. This feature allows developers to identify expensive performance marker ranges within their frames and drill down using detailed hardware performance metrics to find optimizations within their frames. For developers working with OpenGL applications, this enhancement provides valuable insights into application performance and helps pinpoint areas for improvement.
GPU Trace: Resource Barrier Visualization
GPU Trace in Nsight Graphics 2019.4 now includes resource barrier visualization. This feature helps developers identify incorrect or excessive resource barrier usage by allowing them to observe resource barrier execution in the synchronization row and correlate executions to GPU unit utilizations. An overlay can be enabled by clicking on the ‘Overlay Barriers’ toggle button to activate the visualization, making it easier to understand how resource barriers impact application performance.
Acceleration Structure Viewer: Ported to Linux
The Acceleration Structure Viewer has been ported to Linux, enabling developers to analyze applications that utilize NVIDIA VKRay for ray tracing. This tool helps identify inefficient geometry, poor flag usage, incorrect AABBs, and other issues that can impact application performance. The Acceleration Structure Viewer on Linux offers the same feature set available on Windows, providing a comprehensive debugging and profiling solution for ray tracing applications.
Additional Enhancements and New Features
- Execute Command List Visualization: Added to the actions row in GPU Trace, this feature provides insight into what workloads were executed on the GPU and their relative ordering.
- OpenGL 4.6 Support: Ensures compatibility with the latest OpenGL features, including support for SPIR-V and OpenGL.
- Basic Immediate Mode Functionality: Added for developers with legacy code, allowing them to take advantage of the debugging and profiling capabilities of the tools.
- Multi-View Rendering Support: Added to support applications using multi-view rendering techniques.
- OpenGL Extensions: Support for GL_OVR_multiview and GL_OVR_multiview_multisampled_render_to_texture has been added.
- Vulkan Extensions: Support for various Vulkan extensions, including VK_EXT_astc_decode_mode, VK_EXT_calibrated_timestamps, and VK_EXT_display_surface_counter, among others.
Improved User Experience
- Integrated Feedback Button: Allows users to send comments, feature requests, and bugs directly to NVIDIA with the click of a button.
- Improved Frame Debugger Capture and Interception Performance: Enhances the overall debugging experience by reducing capture and interception times.
- Deprecated Features: Real-time performance graphs on the HUD have been removed in favor of more detailed, persistent graphs provided by the GPU Trace activity.
Key Features at a Glance
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Range Profiler | Supports profiling OpenGL applications on Turing-based GPUs. |
| GPU Trace | Includes resource barrier visualization and execute command list visualization. |
| Acceleration Structure Viewer | Ported to Linux for analyzing ray tracing applications. |
| OpenGL 4.6 Support | Ensures compatibility with the latest OpenGL features. |
| Basic Immediate Mode Functionality | Added for developers with legacy code. |
| Multi-View Rendering Support | Supports applications using multi-view rendering techniques. |
| OpenGL Extensions | Supports GL_OVR_multiview and GL_OVR_multiview_multisampled_render_to_texture. |
| Vulkan Extensions | Supports various Vulkan extensions. |
| Integrated Feedback Button | Allows users to send feedback directly to NVIDIA. |
| Improved Frame Debugger Capture and Interception Performance | Enhances the overall debugging experience. |
By understanding and leveraging these features, developers can unlock the full potential of NVIDIA Nsight Graphics 2019.4 to create more efficient and high-performance graphics applications.
Conclusion
NVIDIA Nsight Graphics 2019.4 is a significant update that brings powerful new features and enhancements to graphics developers. With support for profiling OpenGL applications on Turing-based GPUs, resource barrier visualization in GPU Trace, and the porting of the Acceleration Structure Viewer to Linux, developers have more tools at their disposal to optimize and debug their applications. By leveraging these features, developers can gain deeper insights into their applications’ performance and make targeted improvements to enhance overall efficiency and user experience.