Microsoft brings console-style GPU developer tools to Windows

Microsoft has released an update to DirectX it calls "the biggest wave of new tooling features in DirectX’s history." The company and its GPU partners set out "our dream of bringing console-level GPU developer tools to Windows," with AMD, Intel, Nvidia and Qualcomm all contributing to the work.

The update introduces DirectX dump files to improve crash-dump infrastructure. Microsoft notes that "GPU-related bugs can emerge at any point in a game’s lifecycle," and showed this debugging work as a preview at this year’s GDC, with more public details expected in the coming months.

A new shader explorer offers "a new way to inspect, understand and debug compiled shaders, with deeper live analysis." The explorer integrates with Pix and has been demonstrated on AMD and Intel hardware. Because the tool is not paired to the driver, developers can analyse shaders for GPUs they don’t own, which could help optimisation across the many hardware configurations that make up PC gaming.

directx, gpu tools, windows, shader explorer, pix, amd, intel, nvidia, qualcomm, crash dump