> ## 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.

# PIX on XBOX and Windows for GDK titles

> PIX performance-tuning and debugging tool for XBOX and Windows GDK titles, including GPU captures, GPU traces, shader explorer, and PIX extensibility.

Documentation for PIX.

## Subtopics

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Extensibility" icon="folder-open" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/extensibility/index">
    Documentation for extensibility.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Gpu" icon="folder-open" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/gpu/index">
    Documentation for gpu.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Gpu trace" icon="folder-open" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/gpu-trace/index">
    Documentation for gpu trace.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Shader explorer" icon="folder-open" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/shader-explorer/index">
    Documentation for shader explorer.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Guides

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Analyzing title performance" icon="gauge-high" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/analyzing-system-performance">
    Overview Describes PIX as a performance tuning and debugging tool for game developers who are building DirectX 12 titles.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Configuring the PIX UI" icon="gauge-high" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/configuring-pix">
    The default window layout that PIX uses for the device connection tabs and for each capture type can be customized.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Analyzing cpu performance" icon="microchip" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/cpu-performance">
    PIX includes several features and capture types for helping you solve CPU performance issues.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Analyzing directstorage and Win32 file" icon="hard-drive" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/fileio-performance">
    PIX Timing Captures include features for analyzing the performance of your title's file accesses.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Launching PIX, connecting to consoles," icon="rocket" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/launching-and-connecting">
    The Gaming eXtensions Development Kit (GXDK) setup program installs PIX to the C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft GDK\bin folder on your…
  </Card>

  <Card title="Analyzing memory usage and performance" icon="memory" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/memory-performance">
    PIX includes a variety of features and capture types to help you diagnose issues that are related to memory usage and performance.
  </Card>

  <Card title="PIX timing captures" icon="gauge-high" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/new-timing-captures">
    a id="timing\_capture\_overview"/a
  </Card>

  <Card title="Opening programmatic timing captures" icon="gauge-high" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/open-offline-timing-captures">
    Captures taken with the PIXBeginCapture API must go through a conversion process before they can be viewed in PIX.
  </Card>

  <Card title="PIX API" icon="plug" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-api-reference">
    PIX includes set of APIs that can be used for a number of tasks, including the recording of timing data, providing software counters,…
  </Card>

  <Card title="Profiling a title's initialization and" icon="gauge-high" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-capture-from-launch">
    A title's startup sequence typically involves numerous memory allocations and file IO operations, along with other initialization tasks.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Analyzing stalls and context switches" icon="gauge-high" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-context-switches">
    This topic describes how to use PIX to analyze stalls and context switches.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Converting an etl file to a timing" icon="gauge-high" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-convert-etl-files">
    The Convert menu under the Home tab in PIX can be used to create a Timing Capture by converting an etl file collected using xbPerf, xperf…
  </Card>

  <Card title="Converting previous versions of timing" icon="clock-rotate-left" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-convert-timing-captures">
    In some releases of PIX, the Timing Capture file format must be changed as new features are added.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Configuring PIX to access pdbs for cpu" icon="gauge-high" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-cpu-pdb-config">
    CPU captures in PIX require access to your title's Program Databases (PDBs) to properly display functions names in callstacks, sampled…
  </Card>

  <Card title="Analyzing the critical path for a PIX" icon="gauge-high" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-critical-path">
    PIX analyzes the context switch data collected during a Timing Capture to compute the critical path for a selected PIX event.
  </Card>

  <Card title="PIX custom memory allocators" icon="gauge-high" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-custom-memory-allocators">
    PIX timing captures can track memory allocations and frees made by your custom memory allocators.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Analyzing directstorage performance" icon="download" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-directstorage">
    PIX Timing Captures include an option to collect data on your title's use of DirectStorage.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Gpu debugging guidelines" icon="palette" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-gpu-debugging">
    You may see various issues such as rendering corruption, glitches, GPU hangs, page faults and so on during game development.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Analyzing dynamic latency input" icon="network-wired" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-input-sync">
    PIX Timing Captures include an option to collect data on input readings and Dynamic Latency Input (DLI).
  </Card>

  <Card title="Instruction trace captures" icon="brackets-curly" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-instruction-trace-captures">
    a id="itrace\_overview"/a
  </Card>

  <Card title="Memory pies" icon="gauge-high" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-live-memory-pies">
    When a title is paused, the Memory Pies view in PIX can be used.
  </Card>

  <Card title="PIX live" icon="gauge-high" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-live">
    When connected to a console in PIX, PIX has the ability to pause and unpause a running title via the pause/play button located both next to…
  </Card>

  <Card title="Analyzing file accesses that occur" icon="gauge-high" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-mappingfiles">
    a id="file\_io\_mapping\_files"/a
  </Card>

  <Card title="The metrics view in PIX timing captures" icon="chart-line" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-metrics-view">
    The Metrics View is a graphical tool that helps you analyze large volumes of data to quickly find areas of interest as they relate to…
  </Card>

  <Card title="Detecting violations of write" icon="hard-drive" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-nvme-write-monitor">
    This topic describes how to use PIX to detect when too much data has been written to local storage.
  </Card>

  <Card title="PIX on-demand live debugging" icon="bug" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-on-demand-live-debugging">
    On-demand live debugging can be used to debug XBOX GPU in real-time outside of hang and exception scenarios.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Analyzing cpu samples in timing captures" icon="user" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-sampling-profiler">
    PIX includes a CPU sampling profiler that can optionally be run when taking a Timing Capture.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Saving and loading PIX settings" icon="sliders" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-save-load-settings">
    The Settings layout, accessible from the PIX Home tab, provides several controls for configuring various aspects of the PIX user interface…
  </Card>

  <Card title="Shader exception detection in gpu" icon="palette" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-shader-exception-detection">
    Shaders throwing exceptions can be detected in GPU captures starting with the June 2023 GDK.
  </Card>

  <Card title="PIX live debugging on shader exceptions" icon="palette" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-shader-exceptions-live-debugging">
    Live debugging can be used to detect shaders throwing exceptions and debug them in real-time.
  </Card>

  <Card title="System monitor" icon="gauge-high" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-system-monitor">
    PIX System Monitor allows for real-time profiling of a title by viewing counter data live as it's streamed off the console.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Timing capture bookmarks" icon="gauge-high" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-timing-capture-bookmarks">
    Starting with the June 2024 version of the Microsoft Game Development Kit, developers can add bookmarks, or annotations, to lanes in the…
  </Card>

  <Card title="Timing capture comparison features" icon="gauge-high" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-timing-capture-compare">
    Timing Captures include a Comparison Layout that can produce a statistical comparison of the average duration for the points that represent…
  </Card>

  <Card title="Querying the timing capture file format" icon="gauge-high" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-timing-capture-sqlite-queries">
    The Timing Capture file format is a Sqlite database.
  </Card>

  <Card title="The timing capture summary layout" icon="gauge-high" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-timing-capture-summary-layout">
    When a Timing Capture is opened, PIX performs an initial analysis that produces capture statistics and a set of potential candidates for…
  </Card>

  <Card title="Analyzing d3d API object usage in" icon="palette" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-timing-captures-d3d-objects">
    PIX Timing Captures include an option to record information on all D3D resource and heap objects allocated and freed while the capture is…
  </Card>

  <Card title="Analyzing memory usage and performance" icon="gauge-high" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-timing-captures-memory">
    PIX Timing Captures include options to record information on memory allocation, accesses and freeing that occurs while the capture is…
  </Card>

  <Card title="PIX videos" icon="video" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-videos">
    PIX on Windows Overview
  </Card>

  <Card title="Analyzing Win32 file io performance" icon="gauge-high" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix-win32-fileio">
    This article describes how to use PIX to analyze the performance of Win32 file IO operations.
  </Card>

  <Card title="PIX" icon="gauge-high" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/pix">
    Performance Investigator for XBOX (PIX) is a performance tuning and debugging tool for game developers who are building DirectX12 titles.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Configuring a console for use with PIX" icon="gauge-high" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/required-xconfig-settings">
    Taking captures with PIX requires the Profiling mode console setting to be On as shown in the following figure.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Setting up and getting started" icon="gauge-high" href="/tools/tools-console/pix/setup-getting-started">
    This section covers how to do the following with PIX.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## See also

* [Commandlinetools](/tools/tools-console/commandlinetools/index)
* [Console commandlinetools](/tools/tools-console/console_commandlinetools/index)
* [Devhome](/tools/tools-console/devhome/index)
* [Devkitagent](/tools/tools-console/devkitagent/index)
* [Hix](/tools/tools-console/hix/index)
* [PGO](/tools/tools-console/pgo/index)
* [Shadercompiler](/tools/tools-console/shadercompiler/index)
* [Titleperfoverlay](/tools/tools-console/titleperfoverlay/index)
* [Visualstudio](/tools/tools-console/visualstudio/index)
* [Wdp](/tools/tools-console/wdp/index)
* [Xbom](/tools/tools-console/xbom/index)
* [Xbwatson](/tools/tools-console/xbWatson/index)
* [Xhit](/tools/tools-console/xhit/index)


## Related topics

- [PIX on XBOX and Windows for GDK titles](/tools/tools-console/pix/index.md)
- [Profile Windows titles with PIX (Performance Investigator)](/tools/tools-pc/pix-for-windows.md)
- [面向 GDK 游戏的 XBOX 与 Windows 上的 PIX](/zh-CN/tools/tools-console/pix/index.md)
- [PIX en XBOX y Windows para títulos del GDK](/es/tools/tools-console/pix/index.md)
- [GDK 타이틀을 위한 XBOX 및 Windows의 PIX](/ko/tools/tools-console/pix/index.md)