Prerequisites
- A PC with the latest GDK installed, on the same network as your console.
- PIX installed via the GDK.
- Power Monitor selected in PIX.
- An XBOX Series X development kit.
Set up the console for profiling
1
Connect via the GDK Command Prompt
Launch the GDK Command Prompt on your PC and connect to the console:The Tools IP is on the console at Settings › Console info › Developer settings.
2
Enable profiling mode in XBOX Manager
Launch XBOX Manager, navigate to Console settings › Debug, and tick Enable profiling mode.
3
Launch PIX
Launch PIX on the PC. The app should transition to the console view.The console view includes:
- Timing Capture Options — how data is captured and transferred.
- Graphs — real-time visualization of captured data.
- Counter Control Panel — remove/add data sets currently graphed.
- Counter Menu — the full list of counters PIX can capture.
Configure the capture
Inside Timing Capture Options, set:- Mode: Streaming Mode
- CPU Samples: 4k/sec (Balanced)
- Video Frames: Enabled
- Compress data for transport: Disabled (unless bandwidth is an issue)
Choose counters
Remove existing graphs (select the x at the top-right of each). From the Counter Menu, drag these onto Drag a counter here to create a new graph:- GPU% Busy
- Power Load
Capture data
1
Launch the title
Launch the game. The graph should enumerate with captured data.
2
Start capture
Navigate to the area you want to test. Press Start Timing Capture or
Ctrl+T to start capturing video and data.3
Play through and stop
Progress through the area. Press Stop Timing Capture. The app transitions to the Timeline tab, which pairs captured metrics with the captured video.
Read the Metrics tab
Open the Metrics tab for a representation of power usage.Metric selector
Pick the metrics to graph. For power profiling, use:- Power Monitor › Load
- GPU › GPU% Busy
Active Metrics
Enable/disable previously selected metrics and change their colors.Working with the graph
Highlight a section of the graph to zoom or align the timeline. Useful actions:- Zoom to Selected Range — fills the graph area with the selected range for a granular view.
- Zoom Timeline View to Selected Range — aligns the video timeline to the selected range so you can see where in the game the data was captured.
- Export Graphed Metrics — exports a CSV of every point (value + timestamp). Open in Excel and compute averages with
=AVERAGE(...).
Certification’s console configuration
For each title tested in the Certification lab, XBOX retains the same setup to obtain comparable results between titles. Consistency across variables is what makes cross-title comparisons meaningful. The Lab platform baselines page reports averages captured with this configuration.Next steps
- Sustainability devkit guide — read power directly on the devkit without PIX.
- Sustainability developer overview — which metrics to trust and where the wins hide.
- Dynamic Power States — verify DPS behavior with PIX.