UE4 Graphics Profiling: Intel Frame Analyzer

[@omidmiresmaeili]

For technical reasons this is my favorite video from the profiling series ^^

[@TechArtAid]

Most underrated :D ("underviewed")

[@SpikeTheSpiker]

Dude that intel tool is awesome! Thank you for the tutorials a lot of this information is hard to find or digest for most :)

[@TechArtAid]

+SpikeTheSpiker Yeah. Even 'ue4 gpu profiling' shows the docs and the same ~8 blog articles. The rest is, like you say, not easier than reading official OpenGL bible 😄

[@xvsholtkamp]

Just wanted to say that your profiling videos were immensely helpful to me and my team. And this tool specifically was a life saver. Wouldn't know about it or how to use it if it weren't for your video. Thanks!

[@TechArtAid]

+Martin Holtkamp Awesome. This is a kind of knowledge that's mostly looked for near the end of production. People not fishing an actual game rarely need it :) So I'm happy to hear every time these videos are useful to someone. (Though, I hope, teams learn from their experience and apply performance knowledge early in next project, to set workflows, guidelines).

[@doug_richardson]

Great series, just watched the entire profiling playlist today. Thanks for putting in the time to create these.

[@TechArtAid]

My pleasure! Are there any related topics you'd like to see covered in the future?

[@doug_richardson]

@@TechArtAid In general, I'm interested in techniques tech artists apply to problems (I'm a primarily a programmer). Some ideas: 1. Techniques for creating destructible environments/buildings, 2. Techniques for constructing a large variety of buildings out of modular assets 3. When to use of vertex animations, and how to author vertex animations (ideally in an widely accessible tool like Blender) 4. Niagara deep dive 5. Advanced particle effect series

[@TechArtAid]

Great list! Saving for future reference

[@quantumdeconstructor]

@@TechArtAid Please make a video about volumes, volumetric clouds

[@victorl2886]

Thank you so much for your tutorials.

[@mateiadeodatus335]

This is pure gold, I just wish I found this earlier

[@TechArtAid]

Glad to hear that you did! :)

[@RagdollRocket]

That's so awesome. Thanks so much! Great tutorial.

[@TechArtAid]

Glad to hear it was useful!

[@DasAntiNaziBroetchen]

How does the frame analyzer generate those draw call IDs? I assume unreal provides those to the profiler somehow? I could not find any intel documentation about this.

[@TechArtAid]

SCOPED_DRAW_EVENT and SCOPED_GPU_STAT macros. The low-level draw call ID is just an (atomically?) increasing index of the calls sent to the GPU driver by the final, unabstracted API (e.g. DX12)

[@Sae-ez3dx]

I don't have any idea about the latest profiler. It has completely changed UI, can you do a tutorial about the latest version?

[@TechArtAid]

They did? Oh. Then try RenderDoc. It has a nice 1-click plugin for Unreal

[@Sae-ez3dx]

@@TechArtAid But does it work for capturing shipped games? I have to capture a frame from a game for analyzing what costs more.

[@TechArtAid]

Yes. You may have to play a bit with the launching settings, but it should work in most cases since they added DX12 :) renderdoc.org/docs/getting_started/quick_start.html

[@Sae-ez3dx]

​@@TechArtAid Thanks man, you and a couple of people teaching us what right thing to do without letting us spent so much on doing expensive courses.

[@TechArtAid]

You're welcome! And what's considered expensive? Do you have an example of a course with good value-for-money ratio? I plan to do a few paid series, narrowly focused on certain topics

[@fredrik241]

Awesome video! (i sent you some deserved money) I am working on a VR game and need to start the packaged game with an commanline option after the .exe (-emulatevr) as running the program during VR play didn't seem to work. Do you know if it is possible to launch a game with extra commandline options? I tried doing a .exe shortcut and adding it there but it doesn't seem to work. Cheers

[@TechArtAid]

Thanks so much. I don't have a VR kit. But generally, if you add an .exe application to the list, you can modify the path before you run it. So just try to add your commands to the end of the path. Check with simpler commands first to be sure that it works. (e.g. "C:\...\Game.exe" -WINDOWED)

[@Superbjenks]

amazing, thanks for the great video!

[@TechArtAid]

Thanks, I'm glad it was useful :)

[@J大侠]

OMG!Thank you so much! amazing intel tool ...

[@TechArtAid]

No problem :) Useful tool indeed (Renderdoc is a good alternative too, when used with a plugin for UE)

[@AnarchyStudy]

Thank you for tutorials! which screen capture software did you use? and which tool did you use to draw on your screen?

[@TechArtAid]

OBS, Audacity, Photoshop, Blender or DaVinci Resolve for editing

[@Coldfire3737]

Great Video! Is there any way for me to contact you directly?

[@lulima2905]

Awesome tutorial, any ETA on the e-book? :D

[@TechArtAid]

Thanks for subbing ;) It's still my main project, but I have to re-think how to do it. I took a bit too 'serious' approach to the writing style, which is inefficient in regards to the time I have after hours. It's all about the content after all :) And I miss the brevity of the videos, so I'd try to incorporate this into the book too.

[@The_Noticer.]

How did you capture frames from Prey? When I tried it with renderdoc I couldn't, because of the Steam DRM.

[@TechArtAid]

For me it worked fine. Maybe try checking "Attach to children", but I'm not sure. I did it on Steam version too, with Intel GPA though, shortly after release.

[@The_Noticer.]

Yeah i just checked, with prey GPA works. But GPA doesn't work with Rise of the Tomb Raider. Dont know how to get the HUD to hook...

[@raishelmy7176]

Frame Analyzer from AMD?

[@TechArtAid]

+Rais Helmy There is one from AMD, CodeXL gpuopen.com/compute-product/codexl/

[@raishelmy7176]

thanks..

[@raishelmy7176]

i can hear police alarm

[@TechArtAid]

+Rais Helmy Oh shit, gotta run

[@Piotr-n8s]

Phenomenal, thanks a lot. I bought your content from Gumroad with few extra bucks (I know it is almost nothing for this conent) but have you ever finished your e-book? I would be happy to pay for it. If not, perhaps you could return to this idea?

[@TechArtAid]

Much appreciated!! Enjoy the project files. And no, I dropped the idea for now. Are you on our Discord? Link in twitter/bluesky bio. We talk performance often. Recently Tom Looman made an ultimate course on the performance topic, fresh for UE5