[Bf-committers] gDEBugger GDC Video: Advanced OpenGL, OpenGL ES and OpenCL debugging and profiling using gDEBugger

[Yves Poissant]

Interesting. I wonder if I missed this tool because I work on Windows. From 
the features and screenshots, I'd say this is doing a lot of what gDEbugger 
is doing. It seems to also do OGL call log. Personally, this is the feature 
I found the most usefull, by far.

Yves

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Konrad Wilhelm Kleine" <konrad at konradwilhelm.de>
To: "Yves Poissant" <ypoissant2 at videotron.ca>; "bf-blender developers" 
<bf-committers at blender.org>
Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 3:25 AM
Subject: Re: [Bf-committers] gDEBugger GDC Video: Advanced OpenGL, OpenGL ES 
and OpenCL debugging and profiling using gDEBugger


> Hi,
>
> maby BuGLe can turn out to be helpful:
> http://www.opengl.org/sdk/tools/BuGLe/
>
> Konrad
>
> Am 25.03.2010 00:34, schrieb Yves Poissant:
>> Not cheap but very usefull indeed. It is no magic however. You need to
>> already have experience with OpenGL, The debugger can flag missused or
>> overused API calls as well as deprecated OpenGL APIs. Several statistics 
>> are
>> reported too. The most usefull output is the OpenGL calls dump per frame.
>> With instrumentation drivers on the graphics card, it is informative to
>> watch different counters while the appliaction is running.
>>
>> That said, this debugger is not a replacement for true application 
>> profiler.
>>
>> The trial version is quite crippled but it can give you a good idea of 
>> what
>> it can do. You can obtain another 7 days trial extension from the 
>> company.
>> For proper evaluation, you will need constant use for several days in 
>> order
>> to fully understand all the tools it includes. No need for special build
>> versions for your application. The debugger intercept all calls to the
>> OpenGL driver.
>>
>> One interresting discovery I made while using this debugger is that all 
>> the
>> OpenGL optimizing tricks that were presented at Siggraph in previous 
>> years
>> do not apply with the new graphics cards. These tricks are oftentime
>> detrimental to optimizing OpenGL on new GPUs. So take care with old
>> optimizing advises you will find on the web.
>>
>> One issue I found with the locked version is that if you want to profile 
>> OGL
>> on different graphics cards, you need to change the graphics card and its
>> drivers on that locked-on computer. Not an easy proposition. That said, 
>> you
>> can buy 3 locked licence for the price of a floating one.
>>
>> Also, for the price of that tool, it is not a tool that I constantly use. 
>> I
>> use it for short but intensive profiling periods and then don't use it 
>> for
>> loooong period of times. So if I had to pay for the tool myself (my 
>> employer
>> did), I would think more than twice. Especially given that now that I've
>> used this profiler, I have a pretty good idea of how I would profile an
>> OpenGL application without the tool and just by using the instrumentation
>> drivers for OpenGL and the profiling API that are provided for free by
>> Nvidia.
>>
>> I'm not aware of any truely equivalent free software anywhere. There are
>> some remnents of such free tools from the times of SGI OpenGL but they 
>> are
>> essentialy of no use today.
>>
>> Yves
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "Dalai Felinto" <dfelinto at gmail.com>
>> To: "bf-blender developers" <bf-committers at blender.org>
>> Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 12:38 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Bf-committers] gDEBugger GDC Video: Advanced OpenGL,OpenGL 
>> ES
>> and OpenCL debugging and profiling using gDEBugger
>>
>>
>>> Complementing:
>>> gdebugger has a trial for 7 days and is cross-plataform. The price is 
>>> not
>>> cheap ($790 Node Locked and $2450 Floating - * Linux has only floating)
>>> but
>>> I believe they are other tools out there that can do similar and are 
>>> open
>>> software. Not sure about interface, performance, ...
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Dalai
>>>
>>> 2010/3/24 Dalai Felinto <dfelinto at gmail.com>
>>>
>>>> Hi folks,
>>>> I watched the following video and I'm quite impressed:
>>>> http://nvidia.fullviewmedia.com/gdc2010/13-avi-shapira.html
>>>>
>>>> In BGE current profiling the whole Rasterizer is keep as an unique 
>>>> entry.
>>>> With this debugger you can actually see where is the actual bottleneck
>>>> (Fragment, Vertex, ...). The same can be applied for Blender I believe.
>>>>
>>>> When I find time I'll try to run it on simple BGE demos. I have a 
>>>> feeling
>>>> that this can help to fix some bugs we have (e.g. alpha flickering). 
>>>> Also
>>>> from a user perspective, that sounds as a handy tool to help
>>>> game optimization (assuming we can tackle the main BGE GL problems that
>>>> may
>>>> be present).
>>>>
>>>> Maybe an interesting GSOC for someone? (to implement openGL Rasterizer
>>>> profile and fix/optimize BGE openGL errors)?
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Dalai
>>>>
>>>> http://blenderecia.orgfree.com
>>>>
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