PIX

PIX is a debugging and analysis tool that captures detailed information from a Direct3D application as it executes. PIX can be configured to gather data, such as the list of Direct3D APIs called, timing information, mesh vertices before and after transformations, screenshots, and select statistics. PIX can also be used for debugging vertex and pixel shaders, including setting breakpoints and stepping through shader code.

Versions of DirectX

PIX works with the versions of DirectX and Windows shown in the following table.

Runtime	Windows XP	Windows XP x64 Edition	Windows Vista	Windows Vista 64-bit Edition
Direct3D 9	x	x	x	x
Direct3D 10			x	x
Direct3D 11			x	x

Both 32- and 64-bit implementations of PIX are distributed with Direct3D.

Recommendations

It is recommended that developers use the version of PIX that matches the version of Windows; that is, the 32-bit version of PIX on 32-bit editions of Windows and the 64-bit version of PIX on 64-bit editions Windows. When the DirectX SDK is installed, PIX file associations and the Start menu are set to support this behavior.

The 64-bit version of PIX can be used with either 32- or 64-bit applications under 64-bit versions of Windows, although this may require administrative credentials on Windows Vista (for more information, see PIX Requirements for Windows Vista).

Note     PIX experiment files and run files have the same format regardless of the version of the runtime or the operating system. Therefore, a run file captured on a 32-bit version of Windows can be played back on a 64-bit version of Windows to make sure that the run file (and therefore the program it is derived from) will render correctly in that environment.

Path

The location of PIX depends on the version, as shown in the following table.

32-bit	%DXSDK_DIR%\Utilities\Bin\x86\
64-bit	%DXSDK_DIR%\Utilities\Bin\x64\

In This Section

The documentation for PIX includes:

User's Guide

Description of the features of PIX and how to make use of them.

PIX Tutorials and Samples

Tutorials that demonstrate how to analyze some common application problems.

Reference

A complete description of the user interface to operate PIX.

Related Topics

DirectX Performance Tools

Describes tools to help you improve the performance of your DirectX application.