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DirectX Support in Visual Studio

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DirectX 12 Support

Visual Studio Graphics Diagnostics does not support DirectX 12. For graphical debugging with full DirectX 12 support, Visual Studio recommends PIX on Windows.

PIX on Windows is a performance tuning and debugging tool with remote capabilities. PIX on Windows offers seven main features that fit your graphical debugging needs. Debug and analyze the performance of Direct3D 12 graphics rendering with GPU captures. Understand the performance and threading of all CPU and GPU work carried out by your game with timing captures. Identify inefficiencies in your title's disk IO patterns and package layout with file IO captures.

Press on your graphical debugging journey with PIX on Windows.

DirectX 11 Support

Visual Studio Graphics Diagnostics does not fully support DirectX 11. For graphical debugging with enhanced DirectX 11 support, Visual Studio recommends PIX on Windows.

Read more about PIX on Windows compatibility for DirectX 11 at Debugging D3D11 apps using D3D11On12

PIX on Windows

PIX on Windows features seven main modes of operation:

  1. GPU captures for debugging and analyzing the performance of Direct3D 12 graphics rendering.
  2. Timing captures for understanding the performance and threading of all CPU and GPU work carried out by your game, and for tracking GPU memory usage.
  3. Function Summary captures accumulate information about how long each function runs for and how often each is called.
  4. Callgraph captures trace the execution of a single function.
  5. Memory Allocation captures provide insight into the memory allocations made by your game.
  6. File IO captures help you identify inefficiencies in your title’s disk IO patterns and package layout.
  7. System Monitor displays real-time counter data while a game is running.

A detailed video introduction to PIX on Windows is available here

Download PIX on Windows or view Documentation.