Walkthrough: Capturing Graphics Information Programmatically

Article
11/04/2016

Applies to: Visual Studio Visual Studio for Mac

Note

This article applies to Visual Studio 2017. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here

You can use Visual Studio Graphics Diagnostics to programmatically capture graphics information from a Direct3D app.

Programmatic capture is useful in scenarios such as:

Begin capture programmatically when your graphics app doesn't use swapchain present, such as when it renders to a texture.
Begin capture programmatically when your app doesn't render at all, such as when it uses DirectCompute to perform calculations.
Call CaptureCurrentFramewhen a rendering problem is difficult to anticipate and capture in manual testing but can be predicted programmatically by using information about the state of the app at run time.

Programmatic capture in Windows 10

This part of the walkthrough demonstrates programmatic capture in apps that use the DirectX 11.2 API on Windows 10, which uses the robust capture method.

This section shows how to do these tasks:

Preparing your app to use programmatic capture
Getting the IDXGraphicsAnalysis interface
Capturing graphics information

Note

Previous implementations of programmatic capture relied on Remote Tools for Visual Studio to provide capture functionality.

Preparing your app to use programmatic capture

To use programmatic capture in your app, it must include the necessary headers. These headers are part of the Windows 10 SDK.

To include programmatic capture headers

Include these headers in the source file where you will define the IDXGraphicsAnalysis interface:
```
#include <DXGItype.h>
#include <dxgi1_2.h>
#include <dxgi1_3.h>
#include <DXProgrammableCapture.h>
```
Important

Do not include the header file vsgcapture.h—which supports programmatic capture on Windows 8.0 and earlier—to perform programmatic capture in your Windows 10 apps. This header is incompatible with DirectX 11.2. If this file is included after the d3d11_2.h header is included, the compiler issues a warning. If vsgcapture.h is included before d3d11_2.h, the app will not start.

Note

If the June 2010 DirectX SDK is installed on your machine and your project's include path contains %DXSDK_DIR%includex86, move it to the end of the include path. Do the same for your library path.

Getting the IDXGraphicsAnalysis interface

Before you can capture graphics information from DirectX 11.2, you have to get the DXGI debug interface.

Important

When using programmatic capture, you must still run your app under graphics diagnostics (Alt+F5 in Visual Studio) or under the Command-Line Capture Tool.

To get the IDXGraphicsAnalysis interface

Use the following code to hook up the IDXGraphicsAnalysis interface to the DXGI debug interface.
```
IDXGraphicsAnalysis* pGraphicsAnalysis;
HRESULT getAnalysis = DXGIGetDebugInterface1(0, __uuidof(pGraphicsAnalysis), reinterpret_cast<void**>(&pGraphicsAnalysis));
```
Be sure to check the HRESULT returned by DXGIGetDebugInterface1 to ensure you get a valid interface before you use it:
```
if (FAILED(getAnalysis))
{
    // Abort program or disable programmatic capture in your app.
}
```
Note

If DXGIGetDebugInterface1 returns E_NOINTERFACE (error: E_NOINTERFACE No such interface supported), make sure the app is running under graphics diagnostics (Alt+F5 in Visual Studio).

Capturing graphics information

Now that you have a valid IDXGraphicsAnalysis interface, you can use BeginCapture and EndCapture to capture graphics information.

To capture graphics information

To start capturing graphics information, use BeginCapture:
```
...
pGraphicsAnalysis->BeginCapture();
...
```
Capture begins immediately when BeginCapture is called; it doesn't wait for the next frame to begin. Capture stops when the current frame is presented, or when you call EndCapture:
```
...
pGraphicsAnalysis->EndCapture();
...
```
After the call to EndCapture, release the graphics object.

Next Steps

This walkthrough demonstrated how to capture graphics information programmatically. As a next step, consider this option:

Learn how to analyze captured graphics information by using the Graphics Diagnostics tools. See Overview.

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