

The event list can be filtered, optionally using regular expressions. There is a separate list for each Direct3D 12 queue (graphics, compute, or copy) that was used by the game: The Events view shows all the API calls that were recorded into a GPU capture. The analysis Start button is found in the PIX toolbar: To enable complete functionality you must start analysis, which instructs PIX to create a Direct3D 12 device and play back the capture in the various ways necessary to extract information. Not all parts of PIX are fully functional while in this state. When you first load a GPU capture, data is loaded and parsed but the API calls are not yet actually played back on your GPU.

PIX will attempt to auto-select the playback adapter if the application used only one adapter.

PIX allows you to select the playback adapter from a drop-down in the PIX toolbar. It will always play back GPU captures on a single adapter, regardless of how many adapters the application used. PIX has limited support for multiple GPUs. We can only guarantee playback will succeed when the GPU and driver are exactly the same, so PIX will warn before starting analysis if there is not a perfect match. In most cases a capture taken on one machine will play back correctly on other similar GPUs from the same hardware family, and captures of some games may even work across GPUs from entirely different manufacturers, but it is also possible that something as trivial as a driver upgrade could break compatibility with older captures. Windows GPU captures are not in general portable across different GPU hardware and driver versions. If you are having difficulty taking GPU captures, try using the D3D12 Debug Layer and GPU-Based Validation to find and fix any bad API calls. We make a best effort to be robust even in the case of incorrect usage patterns, but this is inevitably sometimes a case of garbage in, garbage out. It is not always possible for PIX to successfully take a GPU capture if a game is calling Direct3D 12 in invalid ways. These calls can later be replayed, which enables a range of debugging and analysis features. A PIX GPU capture records all the Direct3D 12 API calls made by the game, including their parameter data.
