RenderDoc is a free and

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

frame

debugger A debugger is a computer program used to test and debug other programs (the "target" programs). Common features of debuggers include the ability to run or halt the target program using breakpoints, step through code line by line, and display ...

that can be used to analyze single frames generated by other software programs such as games. RenderDoc can provide in-depth analysis of single frames from any application that uses

Vulkan Vulkan is a cross-platform API and open standard for 3D graphics and computing. It was intended to address the shortcomings of OpenGL, and allow developers more control over the GPU. It is designed to support a wide variety of GPUs, CPUs and o ...

, D3D11,

OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a Language-independent specification, cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D computer graphics, 2D and 3D computer graphics, 3D vector graphics. The API is typic ...

OpenGL ES OpenGL for Embedded Systems (OpenGL ES or GLES) is a subset of the OpenGL computer graphics rendering application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D computer graphics such as those used by video games, typically hardware-accelerate ...

, or D3D12. RenderDoc also allows the user to manipulate a captured frame to inspect different things such as pipeline stage, commands, texture maps, models, assets, and more. RenderDoc can also capture assets outside the view of the game's camera. RenderDoc supports analyzing frame rendering costs on the

graphics processing unit A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed for digital image processing and to accelerate computer graphics, being present either as a discrete video card or embedded on motherboards, mobile phones, personal ...

. Optimizing GPU programs is about finding bottlenecks. RenderDoc provides information of the calls on the GPU, the number of invocation of each

shader In computer graphics, a shader is a computer program that calculates the appropriate levels of light, darkness, and color during the rendering of a 3D scene—a process known as '' shading''. Shaders have evolved to perform a variety of s ...

, and the number of primitives and fragments generated. Baldur Karlsson started RenderDoc development as a spare-time project out of need for a reliable debugger and was then expanded to support more platforms. In 2014

Crytek Crytek GmbH is a German video game developer and software developer based in Frankfurt. Founded by the Yerli brothers in Coburg in 1999 and moved to Frankfurt in 2006, Crytek operates additional studios in Kyiv, Ukraine and Istanbul, Turkey. It ...

announced the

source code In computing, source code, or simply code or source, is a plain text computer program written in a programming language. A programmer writes the human readable source code to control the behavior of a computer. Since a computer, at base, only ...

for RenderDoc is released for free. At GDC 2018, AMD announced that Radeon GPU Profiler would include support for RenderDoc. RenderDoc also integrates with well known

game engines A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games which generally includes relevant libraries and support programs such as a level editor. The "engine" terminology is akin to the term "software engine" us ...

such as

Unity Unity is the state of being as one (either literally or figuratively). It may also refer to: Buildings * Unity Building, Oregon, Illinois, US; a historic building * Unity Building (Chicago), Illinois, US; a skyscraper * Unity Buildings, Liverpoo ...

and

Unreal Engine Unreal Engine (UE) is a 3D computer graphics game engine developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter video game '' Unreal''. Initially developed for PC first-person shooters, it has since been used in a variety of ...

. Oculus maintains its own fork of RenderDoc.

References

{{Reflist Cross-platform software Graphics standards Video game development Debuggers