Radeon Memory Visualizer – Quick Start

How to generate a memory trace

The first thing you will need to do is generate a memory trace. Currently, this is done via the Radeon Developer Panel. Read the documentation provided with this distribution for information on how to create a memory trace. This can be obtained from within the Radeon Developer Panel or from the link on the Radeon Memory Visualizer “Welcome” view. The documentation is also available online at: http://radeon-developer-panel.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

This documentation can also be found online at: http://radeon-memory-visualizer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

Starting the Radeon Memory Visualizer

Start RadeonMemoryVisualizer.exe (this is the tool used to view memory trace data).

How to load a trace

There are a few ways to load a trace into RMV.

  1. Use the “File/Open trace” pull down menu, or the “File/Recent trace” pull down menu item.

Note that RMV is also capable of loading Radeon GPU Detective (.rgd) files. In order to view .rgd file names in the File open dialog box, be sure to select “RGD crash dump files (*.rgd)” in the file filter dropdown listbox. RGD files load all the same types of data as RMV files, however, they are opened in read-only mode (i.e., created snapshots are not saved).

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  1. Go to the “Welcome” view and click on the “Open a Radeon Memory trace…”

  2. Go to the “Welcome” view and click on a trace that you have previously loaded in the Recent list.

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  1. Go to the Recent traces view to see a full list of all your recent traces.

Notice that there is additional information provided for each trace when viewed in this pane, such as the date when the trace was last accessed. It is also possible to remove recent traces from the list using the “Remove from list” link button. Note that they will only be removed from the list; they won’t be deleted from the file system. There is also a link button, “Open file location” to open the folder where that trace file is on the disk.

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  1. Drag and drop a memory trace file onto the Radeon Memory Visualizer executable, or onto an already open RMV instance.

The Radeon Memory Visualizer user interface

RMV uses the concepts of traces and snapshots. A trace is the file which has been loaded as described in the previous section. A memory trace file contains various memory-related events that happened on the GPU over time (memory allocations, deallocations, binding resources etc). A snapshot is the state of the GPU at a particular instance in time. Using snapshots, it is possible to examine which memory has been allocated and where resources can be found. It is also possible to compare snapshots to look for memory leaks. For example, a snapshot could be taken before starting a game level and another snapshot taken after completing the level. Ideally, the 2 snapshots should be the same.

There are four main menus in the Radeon Memory Visualizer and each may have a number of sub-windows..

  1. Start

    1. Welcome – Shows links to help documentation, and a list of recently opened traces, and a sample trace.

    2. Recent traces – Displays a list of the recently opened traces.

    3. About – Shows build information about RMV and useful links.

  2. Timeline

    Gives an overview of memory consumption over time. Allows for the viewing and creation of snapshots

  3. Snapshot

    1. Heap overview – Gives an overview of the heaps available and their associated properties

    2. Resource overview – Gives an overview of the total resources allocated and shows their relative sizes and types

    3. Allocation overview – Shows the resources within each allocation

    4. Resource list – Shows the properties for all the resource in all allocations

    5. Allocation explorer – Shows the resources within a chosen allocation

    6. Resource details – Display more information about a selected resource

  4. Compare

    1. Snapshot delta – Shows an overview of the differences between one snapshot and another

    2. Memory leak finder – Shows allocations from each snapshot and how those allocations intersect to help locate memory leaks

Driver experiments

Driver experiments are configured when capturing a memory trace and allow the behavior of certain driver operations to be adjusted. Please see the Radeon Developer Panel documentation for more details on configuring Driver experiments. Modified Driver experiments included in a memory trace file will be listed on the System information pane under the section labeled Driver experiments.

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When a memory trace that includes Driver experiments is loaded, a notification banner is displayed below the main drop down menu.

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The notification banner includes a “see details” shortcut link that navigates to the System information pane. The banner can be dismissed by clicking the “X” button. Clicking the “Do not show again” link prevents the banner from being shown for subsequently loaded trace files. The notification banner can be re-enabled from the Settings pane.