> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://devdocs.xbox.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Sustainability profiling with PIX

> Measure your XBOX title's power consumption with Performance Investigator for XBOX (PIX) and Power Monitor — step-by-step devkit setup, capture, and metrics.

**Performance Investigator for XBOX (PIX)** is the primary tool for graphical performance on XBOX. It also ships with **Power Monitor** so you can profile power consumption in detail — seeing where peaks and troughs occur relative to what is on screen.

For an overview of tools and metrics, see [Sustainability developer overview](/build/game-principles/sustainability/sustainability-developer-overview). For general PIX documentation, see [PIX for XBOX](/tools/tools-console/pix/pix).

## 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

<Steps>
  <Step title="Connect via the GDK Command Prompt">
    Launch the **GDK Command Prompt** on your PC and connect to the console:

    ```sh theme={null}
    xbconnect <tools-ip>
    ```

    The Tools IP is on the console at **Settings › Console info › Developer settings**.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Enable profiling mode in XBOX Manager">
    Launch **XBOX Manager**, navigate to **Console settings › Debug**, and tick **Enable profiling mode**.

    <Warning>
      Disable profiling mode after the power test, before resuming normal XR testing.
    </Warning>
  </Step>

  <Step title="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.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## 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

<Steps>
  <Step title="Launch the title">
    Launch the game. The graph should enumerate with captured data.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Start capture">
    Navigate to the area you want to test. Press **Start Timing Capture** or `Ctrl+T` to start capturing video and data.
  </Step>

  <Step title="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.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## 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.

<Tip>
  Ensure the graph aggregates on **Average**. Select the metric in the lower-left of PIX, then in the right-hand panel open the **Graph** tab and confirm the aggregation drop-down is set to **Average**.
</Tip>

### 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](/build/game-principles/sustainability/lab-platform-baselines) page reports averages captured with this configuration.

## Next steps

* [Sustainability devkit guide](/build/game-principles/sustainability/sustainability-devkit-guide) — read power directly on the devkit without PIX.
* [Sustainability developer overview](/build/game-principles/sustainability/sustainability-developer-overview) — which metrics to trust and where the wins hide.
* [Dynamic Power States](/build/game-principles/sustainability/dynamic-power-states) — verify DPS behavior with PIX.