**apitrace** consists of a set of tools to:
-* trace OpenGL, OpenGL ES, D3D9, D3D8, D3D7, and DDRAW APIs calls to a file;
+* trace OpenGL, OpenGL ES, Direct3D, and DirectDraw APIs calls to a file;
* retrace OpenGL and OpenGL ES calls from a file;
* visualize and edit trace files.
-Basic usage
-===========
+Obtaining **apitrace**
+======================
+To obtain apitrace either [download the latest
+binaries](https://github.com/apitrace/apitrace/downloads) for your platform if
+available, or follow the instructions in INSTALL.markdown to build it yourself.
+On 64bits Linux and Windows platforms you'll need apitrace binaries that match
+the architecture (32bits or 64bits) of the application being traced.
-Linux and Mac OS X
-------------------
+
+Basic usage
+===========
Run the application you want to trace as
- apitrace trace /path/to/application [args...]
+ apitrace trace --api API /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
-`TRACE_FILE` environment variable before running.
+directory. You can specify the written trace filename by passing the
+`--output` command line option.
+
+Problems while tracing (e.g, if the application uses calls/parameters
+unsupported by apitrace) will be reported via stderr output on Unices. On
+Windows you'll need to run
+[DebugView](http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896647) to view
+these messages.
+
+Follow the "Tracing manually" instructions below if you cannot obtain a trace.
View the trace with
- apitrace dump --color application.trace | less -R
+ apitrace dump application.trace
Replay an OpenGL trace with
Pass the `-sb` option to use a single buffered visual. Pass `--help` to
glretrace for more options.
+
+Basic GUI usage
+===============
+
Start the GUI as
qapitrace application.trace
+You can also tell the GUI to go directly to a specific call
+
+ qapitrace application.trace 12345
-Windows
--------
-* Copy `opengl32.dll`, `d3d8.dll`, or `d3d9.dll` from build/wrappers directory
- to the directory with the application you want to trace.
+Advanced command line usage
+===========================
-* Run the application.
-* View the trace with
+Call sets
+---------
- \path\to\apitrace dump application.trace
+Several tools take `CALLSET` arguments, e.g:
-* Replay the trace with
+ apitrace dump --calls CALLSET foo.trace
+ glretrace -S CALLSET foo.trace
- \path\to\glretrace application.trace
+The call syntax is very flexible. Here are a few examples:
+ * `4` one call
+
+ * `1,2,4,5` set of calls
+
+ * `"1 2 4 5"` set of calls (commas are optional and can be replaced with whitespace)
+
+ * `1-100/2` calls 1, 3, 5, ..., 99
+
+ * `1-1000/draw` all draw calls between 1 and 1000
+
+ * `1-1000/fbo` all fbo changes between calls 1 and 1000
+
+ * `frame` all calls at end of frames
+
+ * `@foo.txt` read call numbers from `foo.txt`, using the same syntax as above
-Advanced command line usage
-===========================
Tracing manually
### Linux ###
+On 64 bits systems, you'll need to determine ether the application is 64 bits
+or 32 bits. This can be done by doing
+
+ file /path/to/application
+
+But beware of wrapper shell scripts -- what matters is the architecture of the
+main process.
+
Run the application you want to trace as
LD_PRELOAD=/path/to/apitrace/wrappers/glxtrace.so /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
+
+### Android ###
+
+The following instructions should work at least for Android Ice Scream
+Sandwitch:
+
+For standalone applications the instructions above for Linux should
+work. To trace applications started from within the Android VM process
+(app_process aka zygote) you'll have to wrap this process and enable
+tracing dynamically for the application to be traced.
+
+- Wrapping the android main VM process:
+
+ In the Android root /init.rc add the LD_PRELOAD setting to zygote's
+ environment in the 'service zygote' section:
+
+ """
+ service zygote ...
+ setenv LD_PRELOAD /data/egltrace.so
+ ...
+ """
+
+ Note that ICS will overwrite the /init.rc during each boot with the
+ version in the recovery image. So you'll have to change the file in
+ your ICS source tree, rebuild and reflash the device.
+ Rebuilding/reflashing only the recovery image should be sufficient.
+
+
+- Copy egltrace.so to /data
+
+ On the host:
+ $ adb push /path/to/apitrace/build/wrappers/egltrace.so /data
+
+
+- Adjust file permissions to store the trace file:
+
+ By default egltrace.so will store the trace in
+ /data/app_process.trace. For this to work for applications running
+ with a uid other than 0, you have to allow writes to the /data
+ directory on the device:
+
+ # chmod 0777 /data
+
+
+- Enable tracing for a specific process name:
+
+ To trace for example the Settings application:
+ # setprop debug.apitrace.procname com.android.settings
+
+ In general this name will match what 'ps' reports.
+
+
+- Start the application:
+
+ If the application was already running, for example due to ICS's way
+ of pre-starting the apps, you might have to kill the application
+ first:
+
+ # kill <pid of app>
+
+ Launch the application for example from the application menu.
+
### Mac OS X ###
Run the application you want to trace as
`DYLD_FORCE_FLAT_NAMESPACE=1` which breaks most applications. See the `dyld` man
page for more details about these environment flags.
+### Windows ###
+
+When tracing third-party applications, you can identify the target
+application's main executable, either by:
+
+* right clicking on the application's icon in the _Start Menu_, choose
+ _Properties_, and see the _Target_ field;
-Emitting annotations to the trace from GL applications
-------------------------------------------------------
+* or by starting the application, run Windows Task Manager (taskmgr.exe), right
+ click on the application name in the _Applications_ tab, choose _Go To Process_,
+ note the highlighted _Image Name_, and search it on `C:\Program Files` or
+ `C:\Program Files (x86)`.
-You can emit string and frame annotations through the
+On 64 bits Windows, you'll need to determine ether the application is a 64 bits
+or 32 bits. 32 bits applications will have a `*32` suffix in the _Image Name_
+column of the _Processes_ tab of _Windows Task Manager_ window.
+
+Copy the appropriate `opengl32.dll`, `d3d8.dll`, or `d3d9.dll` from the
+wrappers directory to the directory with the application you want to trace.
+Then run the application as usual.
+
+You can specify the written trace filename by setting the `TRACE_FILE`
+environment variable before running.
+
+
+Emitting annotations to the trace
+---------------------------------
+
+From OpenGL applications you can embed annotations in the trace file 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)
This has the added advantage of working equally well with gDEBugger.
+From OpenGL ES applications you can embed annotations in the trace file through the
+[`GL_EXT_debug_marker`](http://www.khronos.org/registry/gles/extensions/EXT/EXT_debug_marker.txt)
+extension.
+
+
+For Direct3D applications you can follow the same procedure used for
+[instrumenting an application for PIX](http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/query/ee417250)
+
+
Dump GL state at a particular call
----------------------------------
| ffmpeg -r 30 -f image2pipe -vcodec ppm -i pipe: -vcodec mpeg4 -y output.mp4
+Trimming a trace
+----------------
+
+You can make a smaller trace by doing:
+
+ apitrace trim --callset 100-1000 -o trimed.trace applicated.trace
+
+If you need precise control over which calls to trim you can specify the
+individual call numbers a plaintext file, as described in the 'Call sets'
+section above.
+
+
+Profiling a trace
+-----------------
+
+You can perform gpu and cpu profiling with the command line options:
+
+ * `-pgpu` record gpu times for frames and draw calls.
+
+ * `-pcpu` record cpu times for frames and draw calls.
+
+ * `-ppd` record pixels drawn for each draw call.
+
+The results from this can then be read by hand or analysed with a script.
+
+`scripts/profileshader.py` will read the profile results and format them into a
+table which displays profiling results per shader.
+
+For example, to record all profiling data and utilise the per shader script:
+
+ ./glretrace -pgpu -pcpu -ppd foo.trace | ./scripts/profileshader.py
+
+
Advanced usage for OpenGL implementors
======================================
* obtain a trace
-* obtain reference snapshots, by doing:
+* obtain reference snapshots, by doing on a reference system:
- mkdir /path/to/snapshots/
+ mkdir /path/to/reference/snapshots/
glretrace -s /path/to/reference/snapshots/ application.trace
- on reference system.
-
* prune the snapshots which are not interesting
* to do a regression test, do:
Alternatively, for a HTML summary, use `apitrace diff-images`:
- glretrace -s /path/to/current/snapshots/ application.trace
- apitrace diff-images --output summary.html /path/to/reference/snapshots/ /path/to/current/snapshots/
+ glretrace -s /path/to/test/snapshots/ application.trace
+ apitrace diff-images --output summary.html /path/to/reference/snapshots/ /path/to/test/snapshots/
Automated git-bisection
This can be achieved with retracediff.py script, which invokes glretrace with
different environments, allowing to choose the desired GL driver by
-manipulating variables such as `LD_LIBRARY_PATH` or `LIBGL_DRIVERS_DIR`.
+manipulating variables such as `LD_LIBRARY_PATH`, `LIBGL_DRIVERS_DIR`, or
+`TRACE_LIBGL`.
-For example:
+For example, on Linux:
./scripts/retracediff.py \
--ref-env LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/path/to/reference/GL/implementation \
- -r ./glretrace \
+ --retrace /path/to/glretrace \
--diff-prefix=/path/to/output/diffs \
application.trace
+Or on Windows:
+
+ python scripts\retracediff.py --retrace \path\to\glretrace.exe --ref-env TRACE_LIBGL=\path\to\reference\opengl32.dll application.trace
Links
* [D3DSpy](http://doc.51windows.net/Directx9_SDK/?url=/directx9_sdk/graphics/programmingguide/TutorialsAndSamplesAndToolsAndTips/Tools/D3DSpy.htm): the predecessor of PIX
+* [NVIDIA PerfKit](http://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-perfkit)
+
* [AMD GPU PerfStudio](http://developer.amd.com/gpu/PerfStudio/pages/APITraceWindow.aspx)
+* [Intel Graphics Performance Analyzers](http://www.intel.com/software/gpa/)
+
OpenGL
------
* [tracy](https://gitorious.org/tracy): OpenGL ES and OpenVG trace, retrace, and state inspection
+* [WebGL-Inspector](http://benvanik.github.com/WebGL-Inspector/)
+
Closed-source:
-* [gDEBugger](http://www.gremedy.com/products.php)
+* [gDEBugger](http://www.gremedy.com/products.php) and [AMD gDEBugger](http://developer.amd.com/tools/gDEBugger/Pages/default.aspx)
* [glslDevil](http://cumbia.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/glsldevil/index.html)
projects / apitrace / blobdiff