**apitrace** consists of a set of tools to:
-* trace OpenGL, D3D9, D3D8, D3D7, and DDRAW APIs calls to a file;
+* trace OpenGL, OpenGL ES, D3D9, D3D8, D3D7, and DDRAW APIs calls to a file;
-* retrace OpenGL calls from a file;
+* retrace OpenGL and OpenGL ES calls from a file;
-* visualize trace files, and inspect state.
+* inspect OpenGL state at any call while retracing;
+
+* visualize and edit trace files.
Basic usage
===========
-Linux
------
+Linux and Mac OS X
+------------------
Run the application you want to trace as
- LD_PRELOAD=/path/to/glxtrace.so /path/to/application
+ apitrace trace /path/to/application [args...]
and it will generate a trace named `application.trace` in the current
directory. You can specify the written trace filename by setting the
View the trace with
- /path/to/tracedump application.trace | less -R
+ apitrace dump --color application.trace
-Replay the trace with
+Replay an OpenGL trace with
- /path/to/glretrace application.trace
+ glretrace application.trace
Pass the `-sb` option to use a single buffered visual. Pass `--help` to
glretrace for more options.
Start the GUI as
- /path/to/qapitrace application.trace
+ qapitrace application.trace
+
+
+Windows
+-------
+
+* Copy `opengl32.dll`, `d3d8.dll`, or `d3d9.dll` from build/wrappers directory
+ to the directory with the application you want to trace.
+
+* Run the application.
+
+* View the trace with
+
+ \path\to\apitrace dump application.trace
+
+* Replay the trace with
+
+ \path\to\glretrace application.trace
+
+
+Advanced command line usage
+===========================
+
+Tracing manually
+----------------
+
+### Linux ###
+
+Run the application you want to trace as
+
+ LD_PRELOAD=/path/to/apitrace/wrappers/glxtrace.so /path/to/application
+
+and it will generate a trace named `application.trace` in the current
+directory. You can specify the written trace filename by setting the
+`TRACE_FILE` environment variable before running.
The `LD_PRELOAD` mechanism should work with most applications. There are some
applications, e.g., Unigine Heaven, which global function pointers with the
to trace by using `glxtrace.so` as an ordinary `libGL.so` and injecting into
`LD_LIBRARY_PATH`:
- ln -s glxtrace.so libGL.so
- ln -s glxtrace.so libGL.so.1
- ln -s glxtrace.so libGL.so.1.2
- export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/path/to/directory/where/glxtrace/is:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
+ ln -s glxtrace.so wrappers/libGL.so
+ ln -s glxtrace.so wrappers/libGL.so.1
+ ln -s glxtrace.so wrappers/libGL.so.1.2
+ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/path/to/apitrace/wrappers:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
export TRACE_LIBGL=/path/to/real/libGL.so.1
/path/to/application
See the `ld.so` man page for more information about `LD_PRELOAD` and
`LD_LIBRARY_PATH` environment flags.
+To trace the application inside gdb, invoke gdb as:
+ gdb --ex 'set exec-wrapper env LD_PRELOAD=/path/to/glxtrace.so' --args /path/to/application
-Mac OS X
---------
+### Mac OS X ###
-Usage on Mac OS X is similar to Linux above, except for the tracing procedure,
-which is instead:
+Run the application you want to trace as
DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=/path/to/apitrace/wrappers /path/to/application
page for more details about these environment flags.
-Windows
--------
+Emitting annotations to the trace from GL applications
+------------------------------------------------------
-* Copy `opengl32.dll`, `d3d8.dll`, or `d3d9.dll` from build/wrappers directory
- to the directory with the application you want to trace.
-
-* Run the application.
+You can emit string and frame annotations through the
+[`GL_GREMEDY_string_marker`](http://www.opengl.org/registry/specs/GREMEDY/string_marker.txt)
+and
+[`GL_GREMEDY_frame_terminator`](http://www.opengl.org/registry/specs/GREMEDY/frame_terminator.txt)
+GL extensions.
-* View the trace with
+**apitrace** will advertise and intercept these GL extensions independently of
+the GL implementation. So all you have to do is to use these extensions when
+available.
- \path\to\tracedump application.trace
+For example, if you use [GLEW](http://glew.sourceforge.net/) to dynamically
+detect and use GL extensions, you could easily accomplish this by doing:
-* Replay the trace with
+ void foo() {
+
+ if (GLEW_GREMEDY_string_marker) {
+ glStringMarkerGREMEDY(0, __FUNCTION__ ": enter");
+ }
+
+ ...
+
+ if (GLEW_GREMEDY_string_marker) {
+ glStringMarkerGREMEDY(0, __FUNCTION__ ": leave");
+ }
+
+ }
- \path\to\glretrace application.trace
-
-
-Advanced command line usage
-===========================
+This has the added advantage of working equally well with gDEBugger.
Dump GL state at a particular call
You can get a dump of the bound GL state at call 12345 by doing:
- /path/to/glretrace -D 12345 application.trace > 12345.json
+ glretrace -D 12345 application.trace > 12345.json
This is precisely the mechanism the GUI obtains its own state.
-You can compare two state dumps with the jsondiff.py script:
+You can compare two state dumps by doing:
- ./scripts/jsondiff.py 12345.json 67890.json
+ apitrace diff-state 12345.json 67890.json
Comparing two traces side by side
---------------------------------
- ./scripts/tracediff.sh trace1.trace trace2.trace
+ apitrace diff trace1.trace trace2.trace
This works only on Unices, and it will truncate the traces due to performance
limitations.
You can make a video of the output by doing
- /path/to/glretrace -s - application.trace \
+ glretrace -s - application.trace \
| ffmpeg -r 30 -f image2pipe -vcodec ppm -i pipe: -vcodec mpeg4 -y output.mp4
Advanced usage for OpenGL implementors
======================================
-There are several avanced usage examples meant for OpenGL implementors.
+There are several advanced usage examples meant for OpenGL implementors.
Regression testing
------------------
-These are the steps to create a regression testsuite around apitrace:
+These are the steps to create a regression test-suite around **apitrace**:
* obtain a trace
* obtain reference snapshots, by doing:
mkdir /path/to/snapshots/
- /path/to/glretrace -s /path/to/reference/snapshots/ application.trace
+ glretrace -s /path/to/reference/snapshots/ application.trace
on reference system.
* to do a regression test, do:
- /path/to/glretrace -c /path/to/reference/snapshots/ application.trace
+ glretrace -c /path/to/reference/snapshots/ application.trace
- Alternatively, for a HTML summary, use the snapdiff script:
+ Alternatively, for a HTML summary, use `apitrace diff-images`:
- /path/to/glretrace -s /path/to/current/snapshots/ application.trace
- ./scripts/snapdiff.py --output summary.html /path/to/reference/snapshots/ /path/to/current/snapshots/
+ glretrace -s /path/to/current/snapshots/ application.trace
+ apitrace diff-images --output summary.html /path/to/reference/snapshots/ /path/to/current/snapshots/
Automated git-bisection
The `--gl-renderer` option will also cause a commit to be skipped if the
`GL_RENDERER` is unexpected (e.g., when a software renderer or another GL
-driver is unintentianlly loaded due to missing symbol in the DRI driver, or
+driver is unintentionally loaded due to missing symbol in the DRI driver, or
another runtime fault).
----------------------
In order to determine which draw call a regression first manifests one could
-generate snapshots for every draw call, using the -S option. That is, however,
+generate snapshots for every draw call, using the `-S` option. That is, however,
very inefficient for big traces with many draw calls.
A faster approach is to run both the bad and a good GL driver side-by-side.
-The latter can be either a preivously known good build of the GL driver, or a
+The latter can be either a previously known good build of the GL driver, or a
reference software renderer.
This can be achieved with retracediff.py script, which invokes glretrace with
projects / apitrace / blobdiff