Apple Inc.
Graphics Processing Unit Performance Analysis Tool

Abstract:

Systems, methods, and computer readable media to analyze and improve the performance of applications utilizing graphics hardware are described. In general, techniques are disclosed to monitor the run-time performance of various shader programs from multiple applications executing concurrently on a graphics processing unit (GPU) and present a visualization of such performance to a user. More particularly, the GPU performance profiling comprises sampling data from multiple hardware performance counters and shader programs during the execution of the shader programs on the GPU. The hardware counters may be indicative of the status of various performance and/or architectural limitations of the GPU at a given moment in time. By time-correlating the execution of the various shader programs and the responses of the multiple hardware counters, a more instructive visualization may be presented to the user, which may be used, e.g., as an aid in debugging and/or profiling the applications executing on the GPU.