RenderDoc

No matter how hard you try, sometimes bugs seem to be part of coding. To avoid ruining your day and spending a lot of time and energy singling the bugs out, you should consider a dedicated debugger. RenderDoc is a lightweight utility that addresses developers working on various graphic projects and can come in handy for anyone toying with D3D11, Vulkan, OpenGL and their variations.

The tool comes with portable versions, so it’s up to you if you prefer to install it. The interface is intuitive and includes a single window where you can add the file to be analyzed. The highlight of the tool is that it works on a principle of capturing frames. While the process itself is simple and straightforward, it allows for multiple customization and other advanced options.

You can get started by adding the executable in the launch application tab so that the program can hook into every entry point into the API. The developer points out that the app can only inject itself into processes that have yet to initialize or use the target API. Make sure to launch the debugger before running anything else to avoid undefined results or other errors.

The frames you capture can be analyzed in more detail via the Event Browser Window. You can access a different frame by changing the current event and, once you do that, you should be able to view a list of all-related actions. You will be happy to learn the tool comes with a filter function that enables you to search for specific actions so that the corresponding events show.

These are just two of the critical features of RenderDOC. If you want to learn more about its capabilities and features, then you should know that there are plenty of detailed tutorials, descriptions and videos on the developer’s home page.