Real-time analysis of performance data of a video game
Contents
1. Apr 30 2009 0083 D3D Not using D3DRS PRESENTIMMEDI ATETHRESHOLD D3DPresentImmediateThreshold 0 amp amp D3DPresentInterval 1 amp amp D3DGpuFrameTime gt 0 016667 ms D3DPresentInterval 2 amp amp D3DGpuFrameTime gt 0 033333 ms 0084 The GPU missed its target render time but D3DRS_ PRESENTIMMEDIATETHRESHOLD isn t being used Use this render state to allow frames to be presented imme diately when the frame took longer to complete than the target frame rate This will increase tearing but that s much better than stuttering We recommend setting D3DRS_PRESEN TIMMEDIATETHRESHOLD to 100 0085 D3D Too Many GPU Kick Offs D3DKickOffs gt 100 200 500 0086 There were too many kick offs of command data to the GPU This wastes CPU and GPU overhead Note that the GPU overhead is not reproduced while analyzing a PIX GPU capture Too many kick offs might happen because of reasons such as InsertFence being called too often or because the SegmentCount specified via D3DRING_BUFFER_PA RAMETERS is too high relative to the secondary ring buffer size 0087 FIG 9 shows a flow chart of a method for analyzing the performance of a video game In block 905 a diagnostic tool not shown of performance analyzer system 100 is asso ciated with application code of the video game As one among several ways of doing so an executable code of the diagnostic tool is loaded and installed on a computer that house2. 11 wherein the diagnostics dis play window is further configured to provide a first soft key operable to stop further warnings being displayed in the diag nostics display window 13 The system of claim 12 wherein the diagnostics dis play window is further configured to provide a second soft key operable for displaying in the system monitor display window a pointer icon pointing to a frame wherein the per formance metric violation was encountered 14 The system of claim 13 wherein the diagnostics dis play window is further configured to display a priority level associated with the performance metric violation 15 The system of claim 14 wherein at least one of the system monitor display or the diagnostics display window is further configured to provide a third soft key associated with one of the frame or a time wherein the performance metric violation was encountered the third soft key being operable for displaying a description window comprising a recommen dation for rectifying the performance metric violation 16 A computer readable storage medium having stored thereon computer readable instructions for performing the steps of US 2009 0113251 Al capturing real time performance data when a video game is in operation displaying the real time performance data in a graphical format encompassing a plurality of real time frames corresponding to the video game that is in operation and displaying a warning when a performanc
3. a graphical format in a system monitor window When the warning label is further activated by double click ing on it for example a description window appears The description window provides details of the warning and also provides a recommended course of action for rectifying the problem US 2009 0113251 Al 0024 FIG 1 shows an exemplary display screen 105 that is a part of a performance analyzer system 100 for analyzing the performance of a video game Performance analyzer sys tem 100 has been branded as Dr PIX by Microsoft and it will be understood that any use of the term Dr PIX herein in this document is being merely being done for purposes of convenience Other trade names may be alternatively applied to a performance analyzer system that incorporates the fea tures described herein in this document Similarly reference is made herein to D3D which refers to a Microsoft devel opment tool named Direct3D This tool is generally known to persons of skill in this art and will therefore not be elaborated upon in much detail 0025 Display screen 105 may be implemented in a variety of different formats For example in one implementation display screen 105 uses a windows format in accordance with Microsoft Windows However in other implementations other types of displays and display formats may be used The exemplary display screen 105 of FIG 1 shows a system monitor display window 110 and a diagnostic
4. and other wireless media The term computer readable media as used herein includes both storage media and communica tion media The processor 68 also can have input device s 86 such as keyboard mouse pen voice input device touch input device etc Output device s 84 such as a display speakers printer etc also can be included 0093 FIG 11 and the following discussion provide a brief general description of a suitable computing environment in which s real time analysis of performance data of a video game can be implemented Although not required various aspects of real time analysis of performance data of a video game can be described in the general context of computer executable instructions such as program modules being executed by a computer such as a client workstation or a server Generally program modules include routines pro grams objects components data structures and the like that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types Moreover implementation of real time analysis of per formance data of a video game can be practiced with other Apr 30 2009 computer system configurations including hand held devices multi processor systems microprocessor based or programmable consumer electronics network PCs mini computers mainframe computers and the like Further real time analysis of performance data of a video game also can be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks
5. are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network In a distributed comput ing environment program modules can be located in both local and remote memory storage devices 0094 A computer system can be roughly divided into three component groups the hardware component the hard ware software interface system component and the applica tions programs component also referred to as the user com ponent or software component In various embodiments ofa computer system the hardware component may comprise the central processing unit CPU 721 the memory both ROM 764 and RAM 725 the basic input output system BIOS 766 and various input output I O devices such as a keyboard 740 a mouse 742 a monitor 747 and or a printer not shown among other things The hardware component comprises the basic physical infrastructure for the computer system 0095 The applications programs component comprises various software programs including but not limited to com pilers database systems word processors business pro grams videogames and so forth Application programs pro vide the means by which computer resources are utilized to solve problems provide solutions and process data for vari ous users machines other computer systems and or end users In an example embodiment application programs per form the functions associated with real time analysis of performance data of a video gam
6. capture and display real time performance data associated with execution of the application code generate a warning when a performance metric violates a pre set condition FIGURE 9 Patent Application Publication Apr 30 2009 Sheet 11 of 12 US 2009 0113251 A1 68 80 Removable Storage Non Removable 82 Volatile Storage Processing Portion E 64 Non Volatile Output Device s H 86 Input Device s 88 Communication Connection s FIGURE 10 Patent Application Publication Apr 30 2009 Sheet 12 of 12 US 2009 0113251 A1 Computer 760 System Memory 762 ROM 764 BIOS 766 RAM 725 Monitor 747 Processing Unit Video Adapter Host Adapter SCSI Bus 776 162 Storage Device 721 748 755 APPLICATION N System Bus_723 PROGRAMS 132 f Hard Disk Magnetic Disk Optical Drive Serial PortAF Drive VF Drive UF 734 746 PROGRAM 738 DATA EE A E Network F 75 AN 751 Hard Drive72 5 A Floppy Drive 728 Optical Drive 730 H os 135 Apps 736 Dur 73 Poor C 731 og ata ON Keyboard 740 749 Removable Storage 729 Mouse 742 ru EE ren Floppy Drive 750 FIGURE 11 736 US 2009 0113251 Al REAL TIME ANALYSIS OF PERFORMANCE DATA OF A VIDEO GAME TECHNICAL FIELD 0001 The technical field relates generally to gaming applications and specifically relates to real time analysis of performance data of a video game B
7. devices are electronic mechanical logical or virtual in nature 0105 The various techniques described herein can be implemented in connection with hardware or software or where appropriate with a combination of both Thus the methods and apparatuses for real time analysis of perfor US 2009 0113251 Al mance data of a video game or certain aspects or portions thereof can take the form of program code i e instructions embodied in tangible media such as floppy diskettes CD ROMs hard drives or any other machine readable storage medium wherein when the program code is loaded into and executed by a machine such as a computer the machine becomes an apparatus for implementing real time analysis of performance data of a video game 0106 The program s can be implemented in assembly or machine language if desired In any case the language can be a compiled or interpreted language and combined with hard ware implementations The methods and apparatuses for implementing real time analysis of performance data of a video game also can be practiced via communications embodied in the form ofprogram code that is transmitted over some transmission medium such as over electrical wiring or cabling through fiber optics or via any other form of trans mission wherein when the program code is received and loaded into and executed by a machine such as an EPROM a gate array a programmable logic device PLD a client computer or
8. for the entire duration 0068 Blocks can be tracked down by doing a PIX Timing Capture or by using the SetBlockCallback method Blocks can be eliminated by methods such as double buffering or US 2009 0113251 Al triple or n buffering dynamic resources using methods such as BeginVertices or other mechanisms 0069 D3D The System Consumed too Much GPU D3DIsGuideVisible amp amp D3DSystemGpuTime gt 0 333 ms D3DIsGuideVisible amp amp D3DSystemGpuTime gt 1 ms 0070 The system consumed more GPU time than its reserved amount Please contact the manufacturer so that the manufacturer can reproduce the problem and fix it 0071 D3D The GPU Starved for Data D3DPresentInterval 0 amp amp D3DIdlesAtKickoff gt 0 0 0 0072 The GPU went idle during rendering because it starved for command buffer data from the CPU Ideally the GPU is never idle and is always either rendering or waiting for the vertical blank Use the PIX Record Timing ability to determine why the GPU is starving Note that you may want to capture 2 frames at once because the idle may occur while transitioning from one frame to the next 0073 D3D The GPU Starved While Waiting for the CPU to End a Bracket D3DIdlesAtEndBracket gt 0 0 0 0074 The GPU went idle while waiting for the CPU to call an End API None of the GPU command data in a tiling Z pass or XPS bracket is submitted to the GPU until EndTil ing EndZPass or XpsEnd is c
9. hypertext link to a document containing information pertaining to the perfor mance metric violation x x
10. occur for reasons such as using Predi cated Tiling with a large number of tiles or when many kick offs of the GPU are being done such as can be caused by frequently calling InsertFence Apr 30 2009 0057 Because the primary ring buffer is small the sim plest fix is to increase its size via D3DRING_BUFFER_ PARAMETERS 0058 D3D Too Many Secondary Ring Buffer Overruns D3DSecondaryRingBufferOverruns gt 1 2 3 0059 D3D had to block because the secondary ring buffer was overrun This wastes CPU time for the duration of the block This overrun occurs when the GPU is running behind and there is not enough room in the secondary ring buffer to hold all of the pending GPU commands that have been enqueued by the CPU 0060 The most straightforward fix is to increase the size of the secondary ring buffer via D3DRING BUFFER PA RAMETERS but eliminating the CPU block may not be worth the increase in memory used More difficult is to reduce the amount of commands sent to the GPU such as by elimi nating redundantly set state or by consolidating multiple draw calls 0061 D3D Tiling was Used Without D3DCREATE BUFFER 2 FRAMES Enabling D3DTilingEnabled amp amp D3DBuffer2FramesEnabled 0062 Predicated Tiling was used without enabling D3DCREATE BUFFER 2 FRAMES Predicated Tiling works best if the GPU can make multiple passes over the command data to render one frame while the CPU is con structing the command data fo
11. the first column of tabular display 125 For example graph 121 which is identified in FIG 1 using a solid line may be identified by a red color and cell 126 of the first column of tabular display 125 would be shaded red correspondingly Other identification means may be similarly used for identifying the individual graphs 0028 The second column of tabular display 125 provides list of performance metrics associated with various moni tored parameters In this exemplary embodiment the entries in the second column correspond to various counters that are used to obtain count values of certain performance metrics that are used to analyze the performance of the video game The counters may be provided to correspond to a set of pre determined performance metrics that are selected by a manufacturer of performance analyzer system 100 Alterna tively performance analyzer system 100 may be configured to permit a developer or other individual to define one or more counters for various performance metrics that are of particu lar interest to the developer Apr 30 2009 0029 The third column of tabular display 125 lists the scaling factors for each of the graphs of graphics display 120 while the fourth and fifth columns provide minimum and maximum values of the corresponding monitored param eters 0030 Additionally performance analyzer system 100 may include a data store not shown which is used for storing a running log of timing par
12. A ast rane Too many pane there 35 Toolongaiame 2 6 me Time Range 1 0s to 2 0s FIGURE 6 Patent Application Publication Apr 30 2009 Sheet 7 of 12 US 2009 0113251 A1 100 System Monitor 102 91 80 70 59 48 37 26 16 5 OT Gounter scale Min mex Frames per second 1 8 56 2594 14 Frames GPU Wasted 1 0 00 24 04 Frames D3D Blocked 1 0 00 93 57 d Thread Idie 1 0 00 100 00 133 Tomga 2 6 2 FIGURE 7A Patent Application Publication Apr 30 2009 Sheet 8 of 12 US 2009 0113251 A1 720 725 Frames Warn OER Read EERS SSIS Hsec j lsec Hsec dae der girer SSA Sise Title Free Pages Thread Idle j Warhings Thread Idle 1 008 100 00 SEE EE N xThread2 Idie 1 000 33 07 i Thread Idle 1 000 100 00 Threads Idle i OA PAB 20786130 17238 308 807 301 20786130 17 233 303 307 301 FIGURE 7B Patent Application Publication Apr 30 2009 Sheet 9 of 12 US 2009 0113251 A1 Too many D3D locks Description The game has too many D3D locks happening for this frame You should not do so many on this frame Condition D3DLocks 100 FIGURE 8 Patent Application Publication Apr 30 2009 Sheet 10 of 12 US 2009 0113251 A1 associate a diagnostics tool with application code of a video game activate the diagnostic tool when the video game is in operation
13. ACKGROUND 0002 Analyzing the performance of a video game is tra ditionally carried out by collecting data when the game is in operation halting the game and then analyzing the collected data offline As can be appreciated this procedure is often a hit or miss affair because the captured data may or may not contain information pertaining to an intermittently occurring problem or to a problem of a subtle nature 0003 Furthermore the offline analysis process generally involves a collective effort from a team of software develop ers each having an individual area of expertise For example in such a team a first developer may be an expert on system libraries a second on databases and a third on the correct sequence of coding events that need to occur for successful operation of a particular video game This type of team com position is necessary because traditional analysis and debug ging tools often generate cues such as esoteric and cryptic warning failure messages that only an expert can under stand Consequently this environment does not readily accommodate debugging efforts being carried out by a one person team when this person has a generalized knowledge of gaming and or software or even when this person is an expert in just one particular area of gaming and or software SUMMARY 0004 This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the Detailed Desc
14. US 20090113251A1 a2 Patent Application Publication ao Pub No US 2009 0113251 Al 19 United States Goossen et al 43 Pub Date Apr 30 2009 54 REAL TIME ANALYSIS OF PERFORMANCE DATA OF A VIDEO GAME Andrew Goossen Issaquah WA US Parham Mohadjer Redmond WA US Matthew Kimball Seattle WA US John Howard Palevich Medina WA US Juan Carlos Arevalo Baeza Bellevue WA US Jason Matthew Gould Woodinville WA US Matthew Lee Redmond WA US Michael Burrows Sammamish WA US Karen Elaine Stevens Woodinville WA US David Aronson Austin TX US 75 Inventors Correspondence Address WOODCOCK WASHBURN LLP MICROSOFT CORPORATION CIRA CENTRE 12TH FLOOR 2929 ARCH STREET PHILADELPHIA PA 19104 2891 US 73 Assignee Microsoft Corporation Redmond WA US 21 Appl No 11 925 226 22 Filed Oct 26 2007 Publication Classification 51 Int Cl G06F 11 34 2006 01 GO6F 15 00 2006 01 62 US CL fia 714 46 702 183 714 E11 192 57 ABSTRACT A method for analyzing the performance ofa video game uses a diagnostic tool that is associated with application code of the video game The diagnostic tool is activated when the video game is in operation and real time performance data is captured and displayed A warning is generated when a per formance metric violates a pre set condition The warning may be displayed on a display screen that is used to provide informa
15. alled 0075 D3D Too Many Draw Calls D3DDrawCalls gt 3000 6000 10000 0076 There were many more draw calls than are done by most games in a frame Too many draw calls result in exces sive CPU usage while rendering Consider cutting down on the number of calls such as by potentially doing better frus tum culling or visibility determination or consolidating draw calls or using command buffers 0077 D3D CPU Frame Time Too Long D3DCpuFrameTime gt 50 ms 75 ms 100 ms 0078 The CPU took too long for a frame defined as the time between CPU calls to Swap Present Use PIX to Record Timing for a frame to determine why 0079 D3D CPU Frame Way Too Long D3DGpuFrameTime gt 200 ms 0080 The CPU took way too long for a frame defined as the time between CPU calls to Swap Present Cert require ments specify that Swap Present must always be called within 67 ms If this is during level load when it is difficult to call Swap Present at the required rate consider using the Suspend and Resume methods to have D3D automatically swap for you during the load 0081 D3D GPU Frame Time Too Long D3DIdlesAtKickoff 0 amp amp D3DGpuFrameTime gt 50 ms 75 ms 100 ms 0082 The GPU took too long to render a frame defined as the time between processing Swaps Presents Use PIX to Record GPU for a frame to determine why lt lt Use D3DIdlesAtKickoff 0 so that it rules out GPU stalls caused by the CPU gt gt
16. ameters related to the monitored gaming parameters Consequently when a devel oper notices an abnormal spike for example in a particular frame on graphical display 120 the stored data may be accessed for carrying out a timing analysis on the abnormal frame 0031 Diagnostics display window 115 Dr PIX Monitor provides data statistics pertaining to the monitored gaming parameters and specifically provides data related to one or more monitored parameters that fall outside a pre determined threshold In the exemplary view shown in FIG 1 a first column of diagnostics display window 115 lists warnings related to the monitored parameters The first warning indi cates too many D3D locks while the second warning indi cates too many debug prints The second column of diag nostics display window 115 lists the priority level of each of the warnings of column 1 The priority levels may be pre determined by a manufacturer of performance analyzer sys tem 100 or may be selectably set by a game developer or other user of performance analyzer system 100 The third column of diagnostics display window 115 lists the count value for each of the warnings of column 1 while the fourth column provides frame information of where the warning occurred in the sequence of frames displayed in graphical display 120 0032 Diagnostics display window 115 as well as system monitor 110 may include soft keys for carrying out various operations such a
17. any D3D locks Too many debug prints Too long a frame Warning 435 sio FIGURE 4A Patent Application Publication 445 N zed L 450 Apr 30 2009 Sheet 4 of 12 460 465 US 2009 0113251 A1 memory D3D CPU frame time too long 3D CPU frame way too long Mote than half of the secondary sing buffer ve 3D The GPU starved tor data The GPU starved while waiting for the CPU toi The primary ring buffer became full ine The secondary ring Buffer became full 2 Tiling was used without enabling DADEREAT D Too many callback interrupts Too many 020 physical allocations Too marw draw AFI calls Too marny GPU kick offs AD Too many shader patches LT ime consumed in DAD resiou EQ FIGURE 4B Patent Application Publication Apr 30 2009 Sheet 5 of 12 US 2009 0113251 A1 D3D Too many draw API calls Priority 1 Condition D3D DrawApiCalls 10000 Priority 2 Condition D3D DrawApiCalls gt 6000 Priority 3 Condition D3D DrawApiCalls 3000 Priority 1 Condition Compile Complete 0 errors Priority 2 Condition Compile Complete 0 errors Priority 3 Condition Compile Complete 0 errors FIGURE 4C Patent Application Publication Apr 30 2009 Sheet 6 of 12 US 2009 0113251 A1 Dr PIX Monitor 115 Warnings Warming PA see usttame 7 Too many D3D locks aa 326 Too many debug prints gg 433 Toolongatrame 2 6 26 Frame Range 245 to 442 FIGURE 5 Wang P
18. des additional soft keys such as for example Cancel soft key 435 and OK soft key 440 0036 FIG 4B illustrates other example appropriate invis ible and visible warnings Also as depicted in FIG 4B warn ing conditions are fully editable A user can create a warning based on any of the supplied counter values This allows for an advanced user to go outside of predefined settings and evaluate tailored data combinations Warnings can be tested in a dialog prior to use allowing the user to ensure correct expected behavior As depicted in FIG 4B a user can gener atea new warning via soft key 445 a user can edit an existing warning via soft key 450 a user can reset a warning via soft key 460 a user can delete a warning via soft key 465 or a combination thereof Warnings can be added and removed by moving them between the invisible and visible list A user can set conditions and test if the conditions are technically correct before saving the warnings If the conditions are not correct an error will be generated For example referring to FIG 4C suppose a user forgets to include the gt 10000 portion shown in the Priority 1 Condition window ofFIG 4C Instead suppose the user enters D3D DrawApiCalls in the Priority 1 Condition window When testing the condition an error will be generated The generated error will be Priority 1 Condition error CS0029 Cannot implicitly convert type float to bool Error not sh
19. e as described above 0096 The hardware software interface system component comprises and in some embodiments may solely consist of an operating system that itself comprises in most cases a shell and a kernel An operating system OS is a special program that acts as an intermediary between application programs and computer hardware The hardware software interface system component may also comprise a virtual machine manager VMM a Common Language Runtime CLR or its functional equivalent a Java Virtual Machine JVM or its functional equivalent or other such software components in the place of or in addition to the operating system in a computer system A purpose of a hardware soft ware interface system is to provide an environment in which a user can execute application programs 0097 The hardware software interface system is gener ally loaded into a computer system at startup and thereafter manages all of the application programs in the computer system The application programs interact with the hardware software interface system by requesting services via an appli cation program interface API Some application programs enable end users to interact with the hardware software inter face system via a user interface such as a command language or a graphical user interface GUI 0098 A hardware software interface system traditionally performs a variety of services for applications In a multitask ing hardware softwar
20. e interface system where multiple pro grams may be running at the same time the hardware soft ware interface system determines which applications should run in what order and how much time should be allowed for each application before switching to another application for a turn The hardware software interface system also manages US 2009 0113251 Al the sharing of internal memory among multiple applications and handles input and output to and from attached hardware devices such as hard disks printers and dial up ports The hardware software interface system also sends messages to each application and in certain case to the end user regard ing the status of operations and any errors that may have occurred The hardware software interface system can also offload the management of batch jobs e g printing so that the initiating application is freed from this work and can resume other processing and or operations On computers that can provide parallel processing a hardware software interface system also manages dividing a program so that it runs on more than one processor at a time 0099 A hardware software interface system shell re ferred to as a shell is an interactive end user interface to a hardware software interface system A shell may also be referred to as a command interpreter or in an operating system as an operating system shell A shell is the outer layer of a hardware software interface syste
21. e metric violates a pre set condition 17 The computer readable storage medium of claim 16 wherein the warning is provided in a diagnostics display window the warning comprising a description of the perfor mance metric violation and data statistics related to the per formance metric violation 18 The computer readable storage medium of claim 17 having further stored thereon computer readable instructions for performing the steps of providing a system monitor display window for displaying the real time performance data and providing a first soft key in at least one of the system monitor display window or the diagnostics display win Apr 30 2009 dow the first soft key being operable for displaying in the system monitor display window an indication of a frame wherein the performance metric violation was encountered 19 The computer readable storage medium of claim 18 having further stored thereon computer readable instructions for performing the steps of providing a second soft key in at least one of the system monitor display window or the diagnostics display win dow the second soft key being associated with the frame wherein the performance metric violation was encoun tered the second soft key being operable for displaying a description window comprising a recommendation for rectifying the performance metric violation 20 The computer readable storage medium of claim 18 wherein the description window contains a
22. escription window 810 for example in description section 825 provides access to source code wherein the problem can be rectified The source code is a part of the gaming application code of the video game 0041 In an example embodiment description window 810 further contains a number of dedicated soft keys such as for example the soft keys Close 820 Graph 815 Hide 835 and Edit 840 Clicking on Close 820 closes description win dow 810 Clicking on Hide 835 removes the warning from a warning window such as warnings window 410 described above Clicking on Graph 815 causes a warning graphical display not shown of the warning to appear Clicking on the Edit 840 allows the user to edit the warning condition See FIG 4C This warning graphical display may utilize a format similar to that of graphical display 120 described above Each of the soft keys may be also configured to change function ality when activated For example upon clicking on the Graph 815 key the soft key transforms to an Ungraph key which permits the warning graphical display to be closed 0042 A non exhaustive list of exemplary warnings together with some information pertaining to each of these warnings and some recommended solutions is provided below Several warnings listed below use a certain format for setting warning thresholds and priorities This exemplary for mat will be described using the warning labeled D3DShaderPatches gt 2 10 50 The
23. formance data of a video Apr 30 2009 game there is shown in the drawings exemplary construc tions thereof however real time analysis of performance data ofa video game is not limited to the specific methods and instrumentalities disclosed 0008 FIG 1 shows an exemplary display screen of a sys tem for analyzing the performance of a video game the display screen including a diagnostics display window 0009 FIG 2 shows an exemplary view of the diagnostics display window of FIG 1 in one operational display mode 0010 FIG 3 shows a drop down menu on the diagnostics display window of FIG 2 with oneofthe menu items showing an activation status 0011 FIG 4A shows a warnings display window that is a result of the activation on the drop down menu of FIG 3 0012 FIG 4B shows another example warning display window 0013 FIG 4C shows another example warning display window wherein a user can generate a tailored warning 0014 FIG 5 shows an activation status on a second menu item of the drop down menu of the diagnostics display win dow 0015 FIG 6 shows a view of the warnings display win dow with a time range indicator display in response to acti vation of the menu item as shown in FIG 5 0016 FIG 7A shows a selection status carried out upon one of the items in the diagnostics display window 0017 FIG 7B shows another example ofa selection status carried out upon one of the items in the diagnostics dis
24. g when a performance metric violates a pre set condition 2 The method of claim 1 further comprising providing a system monitor display window configured to display the real time performance data in a first graphi cal format encompassing a plurality of real time frames corresponding to the video game that is in operation 3 The method of claim 2 wherein the warning is provided in a diagnostics display window that is configured to display a description of the performance metric violation data statistics related to the performance metric violation and a first soft key operable to stop further warnings being displayed in the diagnostics display window Apr 30 2009 4 The method of claim 3 wherein the diagnostics display window is further configured to provide a second soft key operable for displaying in the system monitor display win dow a pointer icon pointing to a frame wherein the perfor mance metric violation was encountered 5 The method of claim 4 wherein at least one of the system monitor display window or the diagnostics display window provides a third soft key associated with the frame wherein the performance metric violation was encountered the third soft key being operable for displaying a description window comprising a description of the warning and a recommenda tion for rectifying the performance metric violation 6 The method of claim 4 wherein the description window contains a hypertext link that is hy
25. ice 762 e g mouse Other input devices not shown may include a microphone joystick game pad satellite disk scanner or the like These and other input devices are often connected to the processing unit 721 through a serial port interface 746 that is coupled to the system bus but may be connected by other interfaces such as a parallel port game port or universal serial bus USB A monitor 747 or other type of display device is also connected to the system bus 723 via an interface such as a video adapter 748 In addition to the monitor 747 computing devices typically include other peripheral output devices not shown such as speakers and printers The exemplary envi ronment of FIG 11 also includes a host adapter 755 Small Computer System Interface SCSI bus 756 and an external storage device 762 connected to the SCSI bus 756 0102 The computing device 760 may operate in a net worked environment using logical connections to one or more remote computers such as a remote computer 749 The remote computer 749 may be another computing device e g personal computer a server a router a network PC a peer device or other common network node and typically includes many or all of the elements described above relative to the computing device 760 although only a memory storage device 750 floppy drive has been illustrated in FIG 11 The logical connections depicted in FIG 11 include a local area network LAN 751 and a wide a
26. m that is directly accessible by application programs and or end users In con trast to a shell a kernel is a hardware software interface system s innermost layer that interacts directly with the hard ware components 0100 As shown in FIG 11 an exemplary general purpose computing system includes a conventional computing device 760 or the like including a processing unit 721 a system memory 762 and a system bus 723 that couples various system components including the system memory to the pro cessing unit 721 The system bus 723 may be any of several types of bus structures including a memory bus or memory controller a peripheral bus and a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures The system memory includes read only memory ROM 764 and random access memory RAM 725 A basic input output system 766 BIOS con taining basic routines that help to transfer information between elements within the computing device 760 such as during start up is stored in ROM 764 The computing device 760 may further include a hard disk drive 727 for reading from and writing to a hard disk hard disk not shown a magnetic disk drive 728 e g floppy drive for reading from or writing to aremovable magnetic disk 729 e g floppy disk removal storage and an optical disk drive 730 for reading from or writing to a removable optical disk 731 such as aCD ROM or other optical media The hard disk drive 727 mag netic disk drive 728 and op
27. ng or it might be due to other interrupt or DPC activity in the system The GPU has to idle the entire time that interrupt callbacks are processed by the CPU 0049 D3DX Too Many Run Time Shader Compilations D3DXShaderCompilations 0 5 10 0050 There were too many run time calls to D3DXCompileShader or its variants Shader compilation has very high CPU overhead and requires significant amounts of dynamically allocated memory It s preferable to precompile all shaders on the PC 0051 D3DX Too Many D3DX Resource Creation Calls D3DXCreationCalls gt 0 5 10 0052 D3DX resource creation APIs such as D3DXCreateTextureFromFile have high CPU and disc over head It s preferable to convert resources on the PC to the 360 format using functions such as XGCopySurface pack mul tiple resources into a single file so that a file doesn t have to be opened and closed for every resource and then load efficiently onto the 360 using functions such as XGSetTex tureHeader 0053 D3D Too Many D3D Resource Creation Calls D3DCreationCalls gt 0 5 10 0054 D3D resource creation APIs such as CreateTexture and CreateVertexBuffer have high CPU overhead because they have to allocate physical memory 0055 D3D The Primary Ring Buffer was Overrun D3DPrimaryRingBufferOverruns gt 0 0 0 0056 D3D had to block because the primary ring buffer was overrun This wastes CPU time for the duration of the block This overrun can
28. numbers located within provide priority threshold warning values In this particu lar example the numbers located within indicate a priority level 1 warning setting when D3DShaderPatches gt 50 a pri ority level 2 warning setting when D3DShaderPatches gt 10 and a priority level 3 warning setting when D3DShaderPatches gt 2 It may also be pertinent to point out US 2009 0113251 Al that these priority levels are shown in the second column of diagnostics display window 115 as described above 0043 D3D Too Many Shader Patches D3DShaderPatches gt 2 10 50 0044 There were too many vertex shader patches A ver tex shader patch happens when a vertex shader is used with a different vertex declaration or SetStreamSource stride than it was previously used with or when it s used with a pixel shader whose inputs don t match the vertex shader s outputs Patches cause D3D to incur significant CPU overhead and waste GPU command space 0045 D3D Too Many GPU Interrupts D3DiInterrupts gt 40 100 200 0046 There were too many GPU interrupts GPU inter rupts are generated by calls to InsertCallback or EndTiling EndZPass or XpsEnd Interrupts incur significant CPU and GPU overhead 0047 D3D Too Much Time Spent in Interrupt Callbacks D3DCallbackTime 0 5 ms 1 ms 2 ms 0048 There was too much cumulative time spent process ing interrupt callbacks This is most likely because InsertCall back routines took too lo
29. own in FIG 4C The conditions and errors are based on C C conditional logic 0037 FIG 5 shows a hatched format of the Time mode option in drop down menu 301 indicative of selection of this option When thus selected as depicted in FIG 6 the frame range changes to time range In an example embodiment the time range displayed in Time Range display segment 615 1 0 seconds to 2 0 seconds in this example provides a time win dow within which warnings can be observed Thus the ability is provided to show warnings that were generated within a selected range of time 0038 FIG 7A shows an exemplary view of display screen 105 to describe operation of a soft key process associated with each of the warning messages in diagnostics display window 115 In this particular example the hatched portion indicates that the Too many D3D locks warning has been activated using a first mode of activation by single clicking on the warning for example When thus activated one or more pointer icons are displayed pointing to certain frames on graphical display 120 In this exemplary illustration two Apr 30 2009 pointer icons 710 and 715 are displayed The pointer icons are used to identify the one or more frames where the warning was generated In another example embodiment as depicted in FIG 7B the actual time duration that a warning was active is shown in an event band at the top of the display This is depicted as track that has a
30. per linked to a document containing information pertaining to remedying the perfor mance metric violation 7 The method of claim 3 wherein the diagnostics display window is further configured to display a priority level asso ciated with the performance metric violation 8 The method of claim 7 wherein the diagnostics display window is further configured to provide a user interface for defining the preset condition for the performance metric 9 The method of claim 3 wherein the diagnostics display window is further configured to display the data statistics in one of a a relative frame format and b a relative time of occurrence format 10 A system for analyzing the performance of a video game the system comprising a computer readable storage medium having stored thereon a diagnostic tool for capturing real time perfor mance data when the video game is in operation and for detecting a violation of a performance metric and a display unit configured to provide a diagnostics display window for displaying a description of the performance metric violation and data statistics related to the perfor mance metric violation 11 The system of claim 10 wherein the display unit is further configured to provide a system monitor display win dow for displaying the real time performance data in a first graphical format encompassing a plurality of real time frames corresponding to the video game that is in operation 12 The system of claim
31. play window 0018 FIG 8 shows a description window containing information pertaining to the item that was selected as shown in FIG 7 0019 FIG 9 shows a flow chart of an exemplary method for analyzing the performance of a video game 0020 FIG 10 is a diagram of an exemplary processor for implementing real time analysis of performance data of a video game 0021 FIG 11 is a depiction of a suitable computing envi ronment in which real time analysis of performance data of a video game can be implemented DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF ILLUSTRATIVE EMBODIMENTS 0022 The following description provides details pertain ing to analyzing the performance of a video game by captur ing real time performance data and generating during this data capture a real time warning when a monitored param eter falls outside a pre determined threshold Consequently performance issues that may be of an intermittent nature or not detectable in a non real time analysis process are uncov ered Furthermore upon obtaining a warning a developer can obtain further particulars of the warning and a recommenda tion for carrying out remedial action 0023 In one exemplary embodiment the warning is pro vided in the form ofa diagnostics display window containing warning labels Each of the warning labels is configured as a soft key that may be activated to display a pointer icon that points to a particular frame in a sequence of frames that is displayed in
32. put output portion 74 is capable of accepting a software media on which is stored at least a portion of the diagnostic tool and for displaying the various display screens described above 0090 The processing portion 70 is capable of implement ing real time analysis of performance data of a video game as US 2009 0113251 Al described above For example the processing portion 70 is capable of generating performance data and the display screens described above 0091 The processor 68 can be implemented as a client processor and or a server processor In a basic configuration the processor 68 can include at least one processing portion 70 and memory portion 72 The memory portion 72 can store any information utilized in conjunction with real time analy sis of performance data of a video game Depending upon the exact configuration and type of processor the memory por tion 72 can be volatile such as RAM 76 non volatile such as ROM flash memory etc 78 or a combination thereof The processor 68 can have additional features functionality For example the processor 68 can include additional storage removable storage 80 and or non removable storage 82 including but not limited to magnetic or optical disks tape flash smart cards or a combination thereof Computer storage media such as memory portion 72 76 78 80 and 82 include volatile and nonvolatile removable and non removable media implemented in any method or technolog
33. r the next frame Enable that scenario by specifying D3DCREATE BUFFER 2 FRAMES at CreateDevice time 0063 D3D More than Half of the Secondary Ring Buffer was Consumed D3DTilingEnabled amp amp D3DBuffer2FramesEnabled amp amp D3DSecondaryRingBufferUsed gt D3DSecondaryRing BufferSize 2 0064 More than half of the secondary ring buffer was consumed by a single frame while using D3DCREATE_ BUFFER 2 FRAMES Predicated Tiling works best if the GPU can make multiple passes over the command data to render one frame while the CPU is constructing the command data for the next frame and doing so requires enough second ary ring buffer room to hold 2 complete frames of command data If a single frame consumes more than half of the entire secondary ring buffer but less than the entire secondary ring buffer the frame will still be rendered fine but significant CPU and GPU stalls may result 0065 The most straightforward fix is to increase the size of the secondary ring buffer via D3DRING BUFFER PA RAMETERS but eliminating the stalls may not be worth the increase in memory used Much more is to reduce the amount of commands sent to the GPU such as by eliminating redun dantly set state or by consolidating multiple draw calls 0066 D3D Too Much Time Consumed in D3D Resource Blocks D3DLockTime gt 0 5 ms 1 ms 2 ms 0067 Too much CPU time was consumed in blocking D3D resource locks Blocks waste CPU time because the CPU spins
34. rea network WAN 752 Such networking environments are commonplace in offices enterprise wide computer networks intranets and the Inter net 0103 When used in a LAN networking environment the computing device 760 is connected to the LAN 751 through a network interface or adapter 753 When used in a WAN net working environment the computing device 760 can include a modem 754 or other means for establishing communica tions over the wide area network 752 such as the Internet The modem 754 which may be internal or external is connected to the system bus 723 via the serial port interface 746 In a networked environment program modules depicted relative to the computing device 760 or portions thereof may be stored in the remote memory storage device It will be appre ciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and other means of establishing a communications link between the computers may be used 0104 While it is envisioned that numerous embodiments of real time analysis of performance data of a video game are particularly well suited for computerized systems nothing in this document is intended to limit the invention to such embodiments On the contrary as used herein the term com puter system is intended to encompass any and all devices capable of storing and processing information and or capable of using the stored information to control the behavior or execution of the device itself regardless of whether such
35. ription of Illustrative Embodi ments This Summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the claimed subject matter 0005 In one exemplary method for analyzing the perfor mance ofa video game a diagnostic tool is associated with at least some portion of an application code that is used to execute the video game The diagnostic toolis activated when the video game is in operation and real time performance data is captured and displayed A warning is generated when a performance metric violates a pre set condition The warn ing may be displayed on a display screen that is used to provide information for rectifying the violation 0006 Furthermore an exemplary system for analyzing the performance of a video game includes a computer readable storage medium on which is stored a diagnostic tool for capturing real time performance data when the video game is in operation The system further includes a display unit con figured to provide a diagnostics display window for display ing a description and data statistics of a performance metric violation associated with the real time performance data BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 0007 The foregoing summary as well as the following detailed description is better understood when read in con junction with the appended drawings For the purpose of illustrating real time analysis of per
36. s for example Pause Stop Print Store Ignore Hide Edit and Clear While the functionality of some of these soft keys is self evident it may be pertinent to point out certain features in some others The Save key not shown is used to save the warnings in a database or file the Ignore key not shown is used to selectively ignore certain warn ings the Hide key not shown is used to hide diagnostics display window 115 the Edit key not shown to edit the warning conditions so as to make them visible or invisible and the Clear key soft key 117 is used to clear the contents of diagnostics display window 115 The Stop key soft key 116 will be described below in further detail 0033 Furthermore each of the cells in tabular display 125 and or diagnostics display window 115 may be configured in various ways For example a cell may be configured as a soft key which when activated leads to a further operation such as providing an additional display A cell may be further configured to be editable whereby for example the text con tent may be modified or a numerical parameter set to a desired value 0034 FIG 2 shows an exemplary view of diagnostics display window 115 when a soft key of diagnostics display window 115 has been activated In this particular example soft key 116 which was labeled Stop in FIG 1 was acti vated thereby causing the soft key to be re labeled as Start Upon activation of the Stop f
37. s and runs the application code of the video game The loading may be carried out in a manner similar to that done for installing any commercial software say one that is provided ina CD ROM for example 0088 Inblock 910 the video game is set in operation The diagnostic tool is activated either before or during game operation In block 915 real time performance data associ ated with the execution of the application code is captured and displayed using display screen 105 described above It can be appreciated that the data capture aspect shown in block 915 typically would not interfere with normal operation of the video game In block 920 one or more warnings are gener ated when a performance metric violates a pre set condition The warnings and performance metrics associated with inter preting and using display screen 105 have been described above 0089 FIG 10 is a diagram of an exemplary processor 68 for implementing real time analysis of performance data of a video game The processor 68 comprises a processing portion 70 amemory portion 72 and an input output portion 74 The processing portion 70 memory portion 72 and input output portion 74 are coupled together coupling not shown in FIG 10 to allow communications therebetween The input output portion 74 is capable of providing and or receiving compo nents utilized to perform real time analysis of performance data of a video game as described above For example the in
38. s display win dow 115 labeled as Dr PIX Monitor 0026 System monitor display window 110 hereinafter referred to as system monitor 110 provides a graphical dis play 120 of gaming performance in terms of data statistics captured over a sequence of video gaming frames In one example the data statistics is a count value pertaining to the number of occurrences of a monitored gaming parameter such as for example D3D locks Consequently the number of D3D locks occurring on a real time frame by frame basis can be seen in system monitor 110 It will be understood that various gaming parameters can be selected for monitoring together with selectable priority levels and other performance metrics A few non exhaustive examples of gaming param eters include redundant states number of thread switches in a kernel sleep time ratio of bytes read to number of requests 0027 Below the graphics display 120 of monitor display window 110 is a tabular display 125 that provides numerical information pertaining to the various graphs displayed in graphical display 120 The first column of tabular display 125 identifies a particular graph In the illustration of FIG 1 the graphs have been identified by various types of lines such as solid dashed and dotted lines However this format has been utilized merely for ease of description In a practical set up each of the graphs may be identified by a unique color and each of the colors is identified in
39. solid bar as depicted by bars 720 and 725 for the period the warning was evaluated to be true In an example embodiment the color of the bar signifies the priority of the warning 0039 The Too many D3D locks warning may be also activated using a second mode of activation by double click ing on it for example This form of activation results in the display of a description window for the warning An exem plary description window 810 is shown in FIG 8 for the warning Too many D3D Locks Description window 810 includes a condition section 830 where one or more condi tions that led to the warning are displayed Description win dow 810 further includes a description section 825 in which a description of the warning as well as other particulars of the warning is provided Certain portions of the entries in either the condition section 830 and or the description section 825 may be configured as soft keys For example a portion or entirety of the admonishment You should not do so many on this frame may include a soft key In one embodiment the soft key is provided in a Hypertext Markup Language HTML format which can be activated to jump to a solution source Such a solution source may be a private document such as a user s manual or a public document such as a web page that is accessed via the Internet for example 0040 Furthermore in one exemplary embodiment click ing ona soft key located in any portion of d
40. the like When implemented on a general pur pose processor the program code combines with the proces sor to provide a unique apparatus that operates to invoke the functionality of real time analysis of performance data of a Video game Additionally any storage techniques used in connection with real time analysis of performance data of a video game can invariably be a combination of hardware and software 0107 While real time analysis of performance data of a Video game has been described in connection with the example embodiments of the various figures it is to be under stood that other similar embodiments can be used or modifi cations and additions can be made to the described embodi ments for performing the same functions of real time analysis of performance data of a video game without deviating there from Therefore real time analysis of performance data of a video game as described herein should not be limited to any single embodiment but rather should be construed in breadth and scope in accordance with the appended claims What is claimed 1 A method for analyzing the performance of a video game the method comprising associating a diagnostic tool with at least a portion of a gaming application code of the video game activating the diagnostic tool when the video game is in operation capturing and displaying real time performance data asso ciated with execution of the gaming application code and generating a warnin
41. tical disk drive 730 are connected to the system bus 723 by a hard disk drive interface 732 a magnetic disk drive interface 733 and an optical drive inter face 734 respectively The drives and their associated com puter readable media provide non volatile storage of com puter readable instructions data structures program modules and other data for the computing device 760 Although the exemplary environment described herein employs a hard disk a removable magnetic disk 729 and a removable optical disk 731 it should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that other types of computer readable media which can store data that is accessible by a computer such as magnetic cas settes flash memory cards digital video disks Bernoulli cartridges random access memories RAMs read only memories ROMs and the like may also be used in the exemplary operating environment Likewise the exemplary environment may also include many types of monitoring devices such as heat sensors and security or fire alarm sys tems and other sources of information Apr 30 2009 0101 A number of program modules can be stored on the hard disk magnetic disk 729 optical disk 731 ROM 764 or RAM 725 including an operating system 735 one or more application programs 736 other program modules 737 and program data 738 A user may enter commands and informa tion into the computing device 760 through input devices such as a keyboard 740 and pointing dev
42. tion for rectifying the violation associate a diagnostics tool with application code of a video game activate the diagnostic tool when the video game is in operation capture and display real time performance data associated with execution of the application code generate a warning when a performance metric violates a pre set condition Patent Application Publication Apr 30 2009 Sheet 1 of 12 US 2009 0113251 A1 100 Count Frame sequence System Monitor 102 91 80 70 59 48 37 110 Counter Frames per second Frames D3D Blocked I Frames GPU Wasted EI Thread Idle Dr PIX Monitor 115 Waring Priory Couni Lost Frame i 2 2 FIGURE 1 Patent Application Publication Apr 30 2009 Sheet 2 of 12 US 2009 0113251 A1 100 Count Frame sequence System Monitor 102 91 80 70 59 48 37 26 16 5 120 Counter scale Min Max I Frames per second 1 8 56 2594 14 Frames GPU Wasted 1 0 00 24 04 1 Frames D3D Blocked 1 0 00 93 57 7 E Thread Idle 4 0 001 100 00 Toney oss 1 8 se Tootngatame 2 6 26 Frame Range to FIGURE 2 Patent Application Publication Apr 30 2009 Sheet 3 of 12 US 2009 0113251 A1 Dr PIX Monitor garni Warning Pri Save Last Frame Too many D3D locks 326 Too many debug prins 2 T zuu 433 Too long a frame 2 248 Frame Range to FIGURE 3 Too m
43. unction the contents of diag nostics display window 115 are frozen so that a developer can examine and analyze the displayed values After having done so the developer can now activate the Start key to resume display activities in diagnostics display window 115 US 2009 0113251 Al 0035 FIG 3 shows an exemplary embodiment where a drop down menu 301 is provided in conjunction with diag nostics display window 115 As can be understood the func tionality of drop down menu 301 may be implemented in other alternative ways such as for example by using selec tion icons or soft keys In this example drop down menu 301 contains three options Warnings Save and Time Mode The hatched format of the Warnings option is intended to indicate that this option has been selected When thus selected the Warnings window 410 of FIG 4A is displayed Warnings window 410 provides a list of Visible warnings in display box 425 and a list of Invisible warnings in display box 430 Action soft keys 415 and 420 permit transfer of warnings between display box 425 and display box 430 thereby permitting selection of the visibility status of individual warnings For example the warning labeled Too many D3D locks may be made invisible by selecting this warning for example by clicking on it followed by activation of soft key 420 Each of the display boxes 425 and 430 may incorporate additional features such as a scroll bar Warnings window 410 provi
44. y for storage of information such as computer readable instructions data structures program modules or other data Computer storage media include but are not limited to RAM ROM EEPROM flash memory or other memory technology CD ROM digital versatile disks DVD or other optical storage magnetic cas settes magnetic tape magnetic disk storage or other mag netic storage devices universal serial bus USB compatible memory smart cards or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can be accessed by the processor 68 Any such computer storage media can be part of the processor 68 0092 The processor 68 can also contain communications connection s 88 that allow the processor 68 to communicate with other devices such as other devices for example Com munications connection s 88 is an example of communica tion media Communication media typically embody com puter readable instructions data structures program modules or other data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism and includes any information delivery media The term modulated data signal means a signal that has one or more of its characteristics set or changed in such a manner as to encode information in the signal By way of example and not limitation communication media includes wired media such as a wired network or direct wired connection and wireless media such as acoustic RF infrared
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