1Gpuvis Tracing Annotations 2========================== 3 4`Gpuvis <https://github.com/mikesart/gpuvis>`__ is a tool to visualize ftrace 5traces, with support for most GPU drivers to show GPU activity. 6 7Mesa can emit trace markers to be displayed in Gpuvis, which is useful for 8figuring out why e.g. stalls are happening. 9 10Run on Linux 11------------ 12 13Any traces can be made with trace-cmd. The Gpuvis repository contains 14`scripts <https://github.com/mikesart/gpuvis/tree/master/sample>`__ for 15configuring the markers needed for GPU events. To start tracing: 16 17.. code-block:: sh 18 19 sh trace-cmd-setup.sh && sh trace-cmd-start-tracing.sh 20 # Start your game etc. Then to capture a trace 21 sh trace-cmd-capture.sh 22 # and to finally stop 23 sh trace-cmd-stop-tracing.sh 24 25The resulting trace file can be opened with Gpuvis. 26 27Run on SteamOS 28-------------- 29 30SteamOS includes a script (`gpu-trace <https://github.com/lostgoat/gpu-trace>`__) 31to capture traces. 32 33.. code-block:: sh 34 35 sudo gpu-trace 36 # Press Ctrl+C to stop capture and open report in gpuvis 37 38Note that on SteamOS gpuvis is actually not installed by default, but the 39script does write a gpu-trace.zip file in the current working directory. To 40open it you'll want to do the following on your development machine: 41 42.. code-block:: sh 43 44 scp sd-host:gpu-trace.zip ./ 45 unzip gpu-trace.zip 46 ./trace-cmd convert -i *.dat -o converted.dat --compression none --file-version 6 47 gpuvis *.json converted.dat 48 49The main advantage of the gpu-trace script is that it has an integration with 50perf, so Gpuvis can also visualize perf samples in the timeline. Note that the 51perf file is preprocessed before being put into the zip file, so the trace is 52portable between machines. 53 54 55Annotations in Steam games 56-------------------------- 57 58Steam games are run in a container, and need the environment variable 59PRESSURE_VESSEL_DEVEL=1 to set up the tracing filesystem so the trace marker 60can be written. This can e.g. be done by going to the game properties in 61Steam and setting the command line to 62 63.. code-block:: sh 64 65 PRESSURE_VESSEL_DEVEL=1 %command% 66 67Then you can run the game as usual, and the driver will write trace annotations.