4 **apitrace** consists of a set of tools to:
6 * trace OpenGL, OpenGL ES, D3D9, D3D8, D3D7, and DDRAW APIs calls to a file;
8 * retrace OpenGL and OpenGL ES calls from a file;
10 * inspect OpenGL state at any call while retracing;
12 * visualize and edit trace files.
18 To obtain apitrace either [download the latest
19 binaries](https://github.com/apitrace/apitrace/downloads) for your platform if
20 available, or follow the [build instructions](INSTALL.markdown) to build it
21 yourself. On 64bits Linux and Windows platforms you'll need apitrace binaries
22 that match the architecture (32bits or 64bits) of the application being traced.
24 Run the application you want to trace as
26 apitrace trace --api API /path/to/application [args...]
28 and it will generate a trace named `application.trace` in the current
29 directory. You can specify the written trace filename by passing the
30 `--output` command line option.
32 Problems while tracing (e.g, if the application uses calls/parameters
33 unsupported by apitrace) will be reported via stderr output on Unices. On
34 Windows you'll need to run
35 [DebugView](http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896647) to view
38 Follow the "Tracing manually" instructions below if you cannot obtain a trace.
42 apitrace dump application.trace
44 Replay an OpenGL trace with
46 glretrace application.trace
48 Pass the `-sb` option to use a single buffered visual. Pass `--help` to
49 glretrace for more options.
53 qapitrace application.trace
56 Advanced command line usage
57 ===========================
63 Several tools take `CALLSET` arguments, e.g:
65 apitrace dump --calls CALLSET foo.trace
66 glretrace -S CALLSET foo.trace
68 The call syntax is very flexible. Here are a few examples:
72 * `1,2,4,5` set of calls
74 * `"1 2 4 5"` set of calls (commas are optional and can be replaced with whitespace)
76 * `1-100/2` calls 1, 3, 5, ..., 99
78 * `1-1000/draw` all draw calls between 1 and 1000
80 * `1-1000/fbo` all fbo changes between calls 1 and 1000
82 * `frame` all calls at end of frames
84 * `@foo.txt` read call numbers from `foo.txt`, using the same syntax as above
93 On 64 bits systems, you'll need to determine ether the application is 64 bits
94 or 32 bits. This can be done by doing
96 file /path/to/application
98 But beware of wrapper shell scripts -- what matters is the architecture of the
101 Run the application you want to trace as
103 LD_PRELOAD=/path/to/apitrace/wrappers/glxtrace.so /path/to/application
105 and it will generate a trace named `application.trace` in the current
106 directory. You can specify the written trace filename by setting the
107 `TRACE_FILE` environment variable before running.
109 The `LD_PRELOAD` mechanism should work with most applications. There are some
110 applications, e.g., Unigine Heaven, which global function pointers with the
111 same name as GL entrypoints, living in a shared object that wasn't linked with
112 `-Bsymbolic` flag, so relocations to those globals function pointers get
113 overwritten with the address to our wrapper library, and the application will
114 segfault when trying to write to them. For these applications it is possible
115 to trace by using `glxtrace.so` as an ordinary `libGL.so` and injecting into
118 ln -s glxtrace.so wrappers/libGL.so
119 ln -s glxtrace.so wrappers/libGL.so.1
120 ln -s glxtrace.so wrappers/libGL.so.1.2
121 export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/path/to/apitrace/wrappers:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
122 export TRACE_LIBGL=/path/to/real/libGL.so.1
125 See the `ld.so` man page for more information about `LD_PRELOAD` and
126 `LD_LIBRARY_PATH` environment flags.
128 To trace the application inside gdb, invoke gdb as:
130 gdb --ex 'set exec-wrapper env LD_PRELOAD=/path/to/glxtrace.so' --args /path/to/application
134 Run the application you want to trace as
136 DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=/path/to/apitrace/wrappers /path/to/application
138 Note that although Mac OS X has an `LD_PRELOAD` equivalent,
139 `DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES`, it is mostly useless because it only works with
140 `DYLD_FORCE_FLAT_NAMESPACE=1` which breaks most applications. See the `dyld` man
141 page for more details about these environment flags.
145 When tracing third-party applications, you can identify the target
146 application's main executable, either by:
148 * right clicking on the application's icon in the _Start Menu_, choose
149 _Properties_, and see the _Target_ field;
151 * or by starting the application, run Windows Task Manager (taskmgr.exe), right
152 click on the application name in the _Applications_ tab, choose _Go To Process_,
153 note the highlighted _Image Name_, and search it on `C:\Program Files` or
154 `C:\Program Files (x86)`.
156 On 64 bits Windows, you'll need to determine ether the application is a 64 bits
157 or 32 bits. 32 bits applications will have a `*32` suffix in the _Image Name_
158 column of the _Processes_ tab of _Windows Task Manager_ window.
160 Copy the appropriate `opengl32.dll`, `d3d8.dll`, or `d3d9.dll` from the
161 wrappers directory to the directory with the application you want to trace.
162 Then run the application as usual.
164 You can specify the written trace filename by setting the `TRACE_FILE`
165 environment variable before running.
168 Emitting annotations to the trace
169 ---------------------------------
171 From OpenGL applications you can embed annotations in the trace file through the
172 [`GL_GREMEDY_string_marker`](http://www.opengl.org/registry/specs/GREMEDY/string_marker.txt)
174 [`GL_GREMEDY_frame_terminator`](http://www.opengl.org/registry/specs/GREMEDY/frame_terminator.txt)
177 **apitrace** will advertise and intercept these GL extensions independently of
178 the GL implementation. So all you have to do is to use these extensions when
181 For example, if you use [GLEW](http://glew.sourceforge.net/) to dynamically
182 detect and use GL extensions, you could easily accomplish this by doing:
186 if (GLEW_GREMEDY_string_marker) {
187 glStringMarkerGREMEDY(0, __FUNCTION__ ": enter");
192 if (GLEW_GREMEDY_string_marker) {
193 glStringMarkerGREMEDY(0, __FUNCTION__ ": leave");
198 This has the added advantage of working equally well with gDEBugger.
201 From OpenGL ES applications you can embed annotations in the trace file through the
202 [`GL_EXT_debug_marker`](http://www.khronos.org/registry/gles/extensions/EXT/EXT_debug_marker.txt)
206 For Direct3D applications you can follow the same procedure used for
207 [instrumenting an application for PIX](http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/query/ee417250)
210 Dump GL state at a particular call
211 ----------------------------------
213 You can get a dump of the bound GL state at call 12345 by doing:
215 glretrace -D 12345 application.trace > 12345.json
217 This is precisely the mechanism the GUI obtains its own state.
219 You can compare two state dumps by doing:
221 apitrace diff-state 12345.json 67890.json
224 Comparing two traces side by side
225 ---------------------------------
227 apitrace diff trace1.trace trace2.trace
229 This works only on Unices, and it will truncate the traces due to performance
233 Recording a video with FFmpeg
234 -----------------------------
236 You can make a video of the output by doing
238 glretrace -s - application.trace \
239 | ffmpeg -r 30 -f image2pipe -vcodec ppm -i pipe: -vcodec mpeg4 -y output.mp4
245 You can make a smaller trace by doing:
247 apitrace trim --callset 100-1000 -o trimed.trace applicated.trace
249 If you need precise control over which calls to trim you can specify the
250 individual call numbers a plaintext file, as described in the 'Call sets'
254 Advanced usage for OpenGL implementors
255 ======================================
257 There are several advanced usage examples meant for OpenGL implementors.
263 These are the steps to create a regression test-suite around **apitrace**:
267 * obtain reference snapshots, by doing on a reference system:
269 mkdir /path/to/reference/snapshots/
270 glretrace -s /path/to/reference/snapshots/ application.trace
272 * prune the snapshots which are not interesting
274 * to do a regression test, do:
276 glretrace -c /path/to/reference/snapshots/ application.trace
278 Alternatively, for a HTML summary, use `apitrace diff-images`:
280 glretrace -s /path/to/test/snapshots/ application.trace
281 apitrace diff-images --output summary.html /path/to/reference/snapshots/ /path/to/test/snapshots/
284 Automated git-bisection
285 -----------------------
287 With tracecheck.py it is possible to automate git bisect and pinpoint the
288 commit responsible for a regression.
290 Below is an example of using tracecheck.py to bisect a regression in the
291 Mesa-based Intel 965 driver. But the procedure could be applied to any GL
292 driver hosted on a git repository.
294 First, create a build script, named build-script.sh, containing:
298 export PATH=/usr/lib/ccache:$PATH
301 ./autogen.sh --disable-egl --disable-gallium --disable-glut --disable-glu --disable-glw --with-dri-drivers=i965
305 It is important that builds are both robust, and efficient. Due to broken
306 dependency discovery in Mesa's makefile system, it was necessary invoke `make
307 clean` in every iteration step. `ccache` should be installed to avoid
308 recompiling unchanged source files.
313 export LIBGL_DEBUG=verbose
314 export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$PWD/lib
315 export LIBGL_DRIVERS_DIR=$PWD/lib
317 6491e9593d5cbc5644eb02593a2f562447efdcbb 71acbb54f49089b03d3498b6f88c1681d3f649ac \
318 -- src/mesa/drivers/dri/intel src/mesa/drivers/dri/i965/
319 git bisect run /path/to/tracecheck.py \
320 --precision-threshold 8.0 \
321 --build /path/to/build-script.sh \
322 --gl-renderer '.*Mesa.*Intel.*' \
323 --retrace=/path/to/glretrace \
324 -c /path/to/reference/snapshots/ \
325 topogun-1.06-orc-84k.trace
327 The trace-check.py script will skip automatically when there are build
330 The `--gl-renderer` option will also cause a commit to be skipped if the
331 `GL_RENDERER` is unexpected (e.g., when a software renderer or another GL
332 driver is unintentionally loaded due to missing symbol in the DRI driver, or
333 another runtime fault).
336 Side by side retracing
337 ----------------------
339 In order to determine which draw call a regression first manifests one could
340 generate snapshots for every draw call, using the `-S` option. That is, however,
341 very inefficient for big traces with many draw calls.
343 A faster approach is to run both the bad and a good GL driver side-by-side.
344 The latter can be either a previously known good build of the GL driver, or a
345 reference software renderer.
347 This can be achieved with retracediff.py script, which invokes glretrace with
348 different environments, allowing to choose the desired GL driver by
349 manipulating variables such as `LD_LIBRARY_PATH` or `LIBGL_DRIVERS_DIR`.
353 ./scripts/retracediff.py \
354 --ref-env LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/path/to/reference/GL/implementation \
356 --diff-prefix=/path/to/output/diffs \
366 * [Official mailing list](http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/apitrace)
368 * [Zack Rusin's blog introducing the GUI](http://zrusin.blogspot.com/2011/04/apitrace.html)
370 * [Jose's Fonseca blog introducing the tool](http://jrfonseca.blogspot.com/2008/07/tracing-d3d-applications.html)
378 * [Proxy DLL](http://www.mikoweb.eu/index.php?node=21)
380 * [Intercept Calls to DirectX with a Proxy DLL](http://www.codeguru.com/cpp/g-m/directx/directx8/article.php/c11453/)
382 * [Direct3D 9 API Interceptor](http://graphics.stanford.edu/~mdfisher/D3D9Interceptor.html)
386 * [Microsoft PIX](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee417062.aspx)
388 * [D3DSpy](http://doc.51windows.net/Directx9_SDK/?url=/directx9_sdk/graphics/programmingguide/TutorialsAndSamplesAndToolsAndTips/Tools/D3DSpy.htm): the predecessor of PIX
390 * [AMD GPU PerfStudio](http://developer.amd.com/gpu/PerfStudio/pages/APITraceWindow.aspx)
398 * [BuGLe](http://www.opengl.org/sdk/tools/BuGLe/)
400 * [GLIntercept](http://code.google.com/p/glintercept/)
402 * [tracy](https://gitorious.org/tracy): OpenGL ES and OpenVG trace, retrace, and state inspection
406 * [gDEBugger](http://www.gremedy.com/products.php)
408 * [glslDevil](http://cumbia.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/glsldevil/index.html)
410 * [AMD GPU PerfStudio](http://developer.amd.com/gpu/PerfStudio/pages/APITraceWindow.aspx)