Graphics Log Document
A graphics log document is a record of the Direct3D events that were captured from your game or app during a graphics debugging session. You can examine the log in Visual Studio to identify rendering errors so that you can use the Graphics Diagnostics tools to inspect them in more detail.
This is what a graphics log document looks like in Visual Studio:
.png "A graphics log containing two captured frames.")
Understanding graphics log documents
By using Visual Studio to examine a graphics log document, you can visualize the effects of Direct3D events on the render target that occurred during capture. You can pinpoint regions of the render target that contain unexpected output. When you select a pixel in the affected region, you can use Graphics Diagnostics to inspect it, its shaders, the Direct3D events that affected it, the application call stack that led to those events, and the DirectX objects that support those events. You can use this information to diagnose rendering problems in your game or app.
The top part of the window (Graphics Experiment.vsglog) displays the current render target output of the selected frame, and the bottom part displays a Frame List that contains thumbnail images of the captured frames.
To inspect a frame
- In the Frame List, select the frame that you want to inspect. The render target output in the top part of the graphics log document is updated to display the selected frame.
To inspect a pixel
- In the top part of the graphics log document, select the pixel that you want from the render target output. When a pixel is selected, you can use the Graphics Pixel History window to view detailed information about the selected pixel. For more information, see Graphics Pixel History.
Graphics log summary information
When a graphics log file is the active document, the Properties window displays information about the environment that hosted the Graphics Diagnostics capture session. Several categories of information are displayed.
Direct3D Information
Lists information about the hardware and driver features of the display adapter that was used during the capture session.Property
Description
10-bit XR High Color Format
True if 10-bit XR high-color format is supported; otherwise, False.
DirectCompute CS 4.x
True if Compute Shader 4.0 is supported; otherwise, False.
Double Precision Shaders
True if the display adapter supports double-precision (64-bit) floating-point values; otherwise, False.
Driver Command Lists
True if the driver supports command lists; otherwise, False.
Driver Concurrent Creates
True if the driver supports concurrent (asynchronous) creation; otherwise, False.
Extended Formats (BGRA, etc.)
True if extended formats like BGRA are supported; otherwise, False.
Max HW Feature Level
Displays the highest feature level that is supported by the display adapter.
Display Information
Lists information about the display adapter that was used during the capture session.Property
Description
Description
The display adapter description string.
Display Memory
The amount of memory that's installed on the graphics adapter.
Driver Name
The name of the graphics adapter driver.
Driver Version
The version of the graphics adapter driver.
Name
The name of the graphics adapter.
Experiment File
Lists information about the experiment file that's associated with the capture session.Property
Description
Path
Unused.
Module Information
Lists the name and version of the dynamic link libraries (DLLs) that were loaded by the app during the capture session.System Information
Lists information about the hardware and operating system that hosted the app during the capture session.Property
Description
Memory
The amount of memory that's installed in the computer.
OS Architecture
The target CPU architecture of the operating system.
OS Version
The operating system version.
Processor
The processor that's installed in the computer.
Target Application Architecture
The target CPU architecture of the app. This can be different than the OS Architecture.
Target Application
Lists information about the app that's the subject of the capture session.Property
Description
Last-Modified Date/Time
The date and time that the app was built.
Path
The path of the app.
Process ID
The process ID that was given to the app.
Version
The app version.
VSG Log File
Lists information about the graphics log document.Property
Description
Created by
The name of the app that created the graphics log document. For example, if the capture session was initiated from Visual Studio (manual capture) the value of this property is Visual Studio.
Session Start Time
The date and time that the capture session began.
Size
The size of the graphics log document.