If you have an Nvidia card, NSight works pretty well. I think it has a little bit steeper learning curve than the VS12/13 graphics debugger, but I have gotten it to handle some weird cases that the VS graphics debugger would choke and die on.

Windows 7 64-bit.

I will look into Visual Studio® 2013 Express when I can.

L. Spiro

Do you have a win8 machine around anywhere? The issue is that the graphics debugger is only available in the Windows Store version of VS2013. You can still use it to debug desktop apps, but since the Store version won't install on Win7 then you need to do remote debugging from a Win8 machine. That isn't the best scenario, but it is still better than having PIX crash on you!

VS2013 Express has graphics debugging! Hallelujah!

VS2013 Express for Windows Store Apps has Graphics Diagnostics. VS2013 Express for Desktop does not. However as alluded to, you can use Express for Windows Store Apps to perform graphics diagnostics on a Desktop app that was compiled with Express for Desktop. It's an unfortunate decision that was made to not include it there--some good reasons and not-so-good-reasons--but there's hope it will change in the future.

Windows 7 64-bit.

I will look into Visual Studio® 2013 Express when I can.

L. Spiro

Do you have a win8 machine around anywhere? The issue is that the graphics debugger is only available in the Windows Store version of VS2013. You can still use it to debug desktop apps, but since the Store version won't install on Win7 then you need to do remote debugging from a Win8 machine. That isn't the best scenario, but it is still better than having PIX crash on you!

I have so little access to Windows 8 I have never even seen a Windows 8 device/machine, nor is it even remotely possible for me to buy one right now.

This is why I mentioned I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. My 32-bit Windows XP won’t install on my new motherboard (is that a thing these days? Since when does Windows XP crash during setup?) and I have no purchasing power until my bank stops smoking the good stuff and unfreezes my bank account. I’m living on borrowed money until the bank issue is resolved (I get the feeling that won’t be soon since whenever I try to ask them about the issue I get bombarded with really advanced Japanese and whenever I try to hand the phone over to a translator they say they are only allowed to discuss the issue directly with me (even though I ordered them to discuss it with my translator and the customer is always right)).

Until then I will use the small environment I have made to debug my own things.

PIX is of course invaluable but for this issue I can rig a work-around.

L. Spiro

I wonder if you could use a VM hosted Win8 instance, and remote into your dev machine? That probably isn't an option considering your financial situation, but I'm just trying to find a solution....

I was able, this time, to fix all of my issues without PIX, but I will try it next time.

L. Spiro