I recently switched over to DirectX and have so far used the built-in graphics debugger for visual studio 2013. There are a few annoyances, such as not being able to properly visualize depth textures when debugging, and the ui is abit messy/confusing/takes too long sometimes.

I read about something called Nvidia Nsight (https://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-nsight-visual-studio-edition), apparently works as a visual studio extension, and I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations/opinions of it. Is it better than the default debugger?

My big problem with NSight is many of the really great features require you to remote in from another machine that is running your application.

Have you tried RenderDoc? It's free and an amazing graphics debugger.

My big problem with NSight is many of the really great features require you to remote in from another machine that is running your application.

Have you tried RenderDoc? It's free and an amazing graphics debugger.

If you are referring to stepping through shader code, this is no longer the case. You can now do everything on one single (nv) gpu machine.
I think NSight is way superior to the vis graphics debugger. If you have an NV gpu, it is really worth it. It also works with OGL if that is of any use to you.

My big problem with NSight is many of the really great features require you to remote in from another machine that is running your application.

Have you tried RenderDoc? It's free and an amazing graphics debugger.

If you are referring to stepping through shader code, this is no longer the case. You can now do everything on one single (nv) gpu machine.
I think NSight is way superior to the vis graphics debugger. If you have an NV gpu, it is really worth it. It also works with OGL if that is of any use to you.

I just tried NSight out; holy crap, it surely is ALOT better than vs2013 debugger. Also lets me visualize depth textures easily. Big thanks!