The Radeon Memory Visualizer is a memory optimization tool that can be used by developers to optimize memory usage for DirectX® 12, Vulkan™ applications for AMD RDNA™ hardware.
This document describes how the Radeon Memory Visualizer can be used to examine a memory trace file.
Supported APIs
- DirectX 12
- Vulkan
Supported RDNA hardware
- AMD Radeon RX 7000 series
- AMD Radeon RX 6000 series
- AMD Radeon RX 5000 series
- AMD Ryzen™ Processors with Radeon Graphics
Supported Operating Systems
- Windows® 10/11
- Ubuntu® 22.04 LTS (Vulkan only)
Start RadeonMemoryVisualizer.exe (this is the tool used to view memory trace data).
There are a few ways to load a trace into RMV.
- Use the “File/Open trace” pull down menu, or the “File/Recent trace” pull down menu item.
Note that RMV is also capable of loading Radeon GPU Detective (.rgd) files. In order to view .rgd file names in the File open dialog box, be sure to select "RGD crash dump files (*.rgd)" in the file filter dropdown listbox. RGD files load all the same types of data as RMV files, however, they are opened in read-only mode (i.e., created snapshots are not saved).
- Go to the “Welcome” view and click on the “Open a Radeon Memory trace…”
- Go to the “Welcome” view and click on a trace that you have previously loaded in the Recent list.
- Go to the Recent traces view to see a full list of all your recent traces.
Notice that there is additional information provided for each trace when viewed in this pane, such as the date when the trace was last accessed. It is also possible to remove recent traces from the list using the "Remove from list" link button. Note that they will only be removed from the list; they won't be deleted from the file system. There is also a link button, "Open file location" to open the folder where that trace file is on the disk.
- Drag and drop a memory trace file onto the Radeon Memory Visualizer executable, or onto an already open RMV instance.
RMV uses the concepts of traces and snapshots. A trace is the file which has been loaded as described in the previous section. A memory trace file contains various memory-related events that happened on the GPU over time (memory allocations, deallocations, binding resources etc). A snapshot is the state of the GPU at a particular instance in time. Using snapshots, it is possible to examine which memory has been allocated and where resources can be found. It is also possible to compare snapshots to look for memory leaks. For example, a snapshot could be taken before starting a game level and another snapshot taken after completing the level. Ideally, the 2 snapshots should be the same.
There are four main menus in the Radeon Memory Visualizer and each may have a number of sub-windows..
- Start
- Welcome - Shows links to help documentation, and a list of recently opened traces, and a sample trace.
- Recent traces - Displays a list of the recently opened traces.
- About - Shows build information about RMV and useful links.
Timeline
Gives an overview of memory consumption over time. Allows for the viewing and creation of snapshots
- Snapshot
- Heap overview - Gives an overview of the heaps available and their associated properties
- Resource overview - Gives an overview of the total resources allocated and shows their relative sizes and types
- Allocation overview - Shows the resources within each allocation
- Resource list - Shows the properties for all the resource in all allocations
- Allocation explorer - Shows the resources within a chosen allocation
- Resource details - Display more information about a selected resource
- Compare
- Snapshot delta - Shows an overview of the differences between one snapshot and another
- Memory leak finder - Shows allocations from each snapshot and how those allocations intersect to help locate memory leaks
In an effort to improve workflow, RMV supports keyboard shortcuts and back and forward history to quickly navigate throughout the UI.
RMV tracks navigation history, which allows users to navigate back and forward between all of RMV’s panes. This is achieved using global navigation hotkeys shown above, or the back and forward buttons on all panes in the top left below the file menu.
Currently, back and forward navigation is restricted to pane switches.
These panes allow the user to analyze single snapshots. The panes can be accessed from the list on the left hand side. Below the list is a combo box which allows quick switching between different snapshots.
These panes allow the user to compare snapshots to see how allocations and resources have changed over time.
Pipelines, images and buffers can be given unique names and these names will show up in the RMV UI. The Vulkan extension VK_EXT_debug_utils can be used for this.
For more information, see the document:
https://www.lunarg.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Vulkan-Debug-Utils_05_18_v1.pdf
specifically the section "Naming Objects"
Memory traces for DirectX applications captured with the Radeon Developer Panel can include unique names for image-based resources. Names can be assigned to DirectX resources using the ID3D12Object::SetName() method. Calling the SetName() method results in ETW (Event Tracing for Windows) events being emitted and picked up by the Panel. This resource naming information is then included in the RMV trace file.
For more information, please review the Microsoft DirectX 12 documentation.
The resource names will show up in the RMV UI in the resource list pane, for example:
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