Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers User Guide

User Guide

  • 2021.3
  • 09/23/2021
  • Public Content
Contents

Set Up a Trigger

Triggers enable you to capture a frame or a trace automatically when a certain condition is satisfied. The conditions are specified in the form of custom logical expressions.
For example, you can configure the Graphics Monitor to capture a frame when the
Frame Time
 is high and either of the
EU Stall
 or the
Sampler Cache Misses
 values are high. This combination that can be observed when occasional stutters occur within a game.
Such triggers can be useful for solving sporadic performance issues that are difficult to isolate manually.
Follow these steps to set up a trigger:
  1. In the Graphics Monitor Launcher screen, click the
    Options
     button.
  2. Open the
    Triggers
     tab and click the ON/OFF toggle to enable a trigger.
  3. Select the desired action from the
    Do
     drop-down. You can choose between
    Frame Capture
    ,
    Trace Capture
    , and
    System Trace Capture
    .
    • Select
      Frame Capture
       option if you aim at analyzing a problematic scene and need to understand GPU activity during the process of rendering a particular frame.
    • Select
      Trace Capture
       if you aim at analyzing a problematic scene in a particular application that can be related to synchronization issues or CPU and GPU activity during execution.
    • Select
      System Trace Capture
       if you need to analyze how the processes interact within the system. In this mode, data about CPU and GPU activity is collected from various applications at a time.
  4. In the
    When
     box, specify your condition for the trigger. Conditions are true/false expressions that contain metrics, numbers, logical operators, and simple functions. To create an expression:
    1. Type "" (double quotes) to get a drop-down list of available metrics and choose a metric.
    2. Treat the metrics as operands in a Boolean expression and use the available operators and functions to create a custom logical expression. Available operators and functions:
      +, -, *, /
      Basic arithmetic operations
      &&
      Logical AND
      ||
      Logical OR
      !
      Logical NOT
      >, <
      Greater than, Less than
      >=, <=
      Greater or equal, Less or equal
      ==
      Equal
      !=
      NOT Equal
      max(value1, value2)
      Returns the largest of two values
      min(value1, value2)
      Returns the lowest of two values
    • The list of available metrics depends on the GPU sampling interval selected in the
      Metrics
       tab.
    • The max() and min() functions can be nested and support metric values as parameters.
    • Graphics Monitor checks the expression correctness dynamically and displays an error or warning icon in the
      When
       box if an issue is detected.
    • In the expression, you can combine metrics from multiple sources, including both CPU and Intel GPU metrics.
  5. Select the action to perform after the trigger execution from the
    Post Action
     drop-down menu. Available options are:
    • Nothing
      : no action is performed
    • Terminate
      : close the application
  6. Specify the retrigger delay. The retrigger delay is the amount of time since the last trigger activation during which the trigger is ignored. This option can be used to prevent multiple subsequent trigger activations and to avoid capturing multiple duplicate frames or traces. The delay also provides time to write the capture files to disk.
  7. (Optional) Add another trigger by clicking the
    Add new trigger
     button to have multiple triggers working simultaneously.
    This option is only available for Microsoft DirectX* and Vulkan* APIs.

Product and Performance Information

1

Performance varies by use, configuration and other factors. Learn more at www.Intel.com/PerformanceIndex.