Experiment - Advanced View

An advanced view of an experiment gives you more control over the data collected than a basic view.

Information for the advanced view is entered in two different places.

Triggers and Actions Tab - Create triggers to fire on certain events; assign one or more actions to take when each trigger fires.
Target Program Tab - Identify the target program and any start-up options.

An advanced view of an experiment also has these buttons.

Fewer Options - Toggle between a basic view of the experiment and an advanced view.
Start Experiment - Run the experiment.

Triggers and Actions Tab

The advanced view of an experiment uses triggers and actions to customize data collection.

Triggers

Triggers are events that fire at a certain time. To profile a target program, first decide what you want to measure and how often you want to measure it. Then choose a trigger that occurs when you want a measurement taken. You can choose from the following types of triggers.

Triggers	Description
Program Start	Fires when the target program starts.
Frame	Fires at the beginning of the specified frame.
Time	Fires after this much time has passed after the target program starts.
User Marker	Fires when the target program calls D3DPERF_SetMarker with the marker name.
Begin User Event	Fires when the target program calls D3DPERF_BeginEvent with the begin-event name.
End User Event	Fires when the target program calls D3DPERF_EndEvent to end the event with the end-event name.
Key Combination	Fires when the user types the keystroke combination specified.

PIX checks for time triggers and key combination triggers at the beginning of each frame; once a target program stops rendering, these triggers are no longer processed.

Actions

PIX takes one or more actions each time a trigger event occur. There are several types of actions available.

Actions	Description
Create a run file	Save the data collected in a run file.
Grab a screen shot	Save the frame buffer to an image file. See the file save options.
Modify Device	Toggle between a hardware accelerated device and a reference device when the device is created.
Modify Draw Calls	Enable or disable draw calls. There are three options: Normal - allows all draw calls, Block all - disables all draw calls, Block back buffer calls - Disables draw calls to the back buffer (This can be a handy speed up).
Post Window Message	Send Windows messages to the target progam.
Save Device State	Save device state to an HTML file after the next device interface API call executes. See the file save options.
Set Call Capture	Capture all the Direct3D/D3DX calls. The capture types are listed in the data gathering options in the basic view.
Set Per-Frame Counters	Select counters for collecting data.
Terminate Program	End the target program. Terminating an experiment causes PIX to stop collecting data and close the run file. Terminating a run file closes PIX entirely.

File save options:

Path to screen shot: Supply the folder and filename (do not include the file extension). The step feature autoincrements file names by inserting pound characters (#) as placeholders for digits in the filename. For example, to record files such as C:\Image0001.bmp, C:\Image0002.bmp, specify C:\Image#### for the path.
File Type: the three letter extension.
Overwrite: Overwrite an existing file.
Hide Cursor: Hide the mouse cursor.
Increment Type: None - write to the same filename, Frame - insert the current frame number, Step - insert an increasing number.

Triggers and Actions Buttons

The event view has a toolbar with the following push-button controls. Use event-view controls to toggle the display of data and navigate between events.

Symbol	Name	Description
	Add Trigger	Create a new trigger.
	Add Action	Create a new action.
	Move Up	Swaps the position of the current Trigger or Action with the previous Trigger or Action in the tree.
	Move Down	Swaps the position of the current Trigger or Action with the next Trigger or Action in the tree.
	Delete	Deletes the currently selected Trigger or Action.

To modify a trigger (or an action), select the trigger (or the action) and use the corresponding drop down box to select an entry.

Target Program Tab

The target program tab is the place to enter information about the target program and how to launch it. Use this tab to specify the path, startup folder, and command-line arguments for the target program.

In some situations the application launched may be a helper program that launches the application to analyze. In this situation, set a number in Skip processes before gathering to tell PIX which application to analyze.

Field	Description
Program Path	The target program, including the full file path.
Startup Folder	The folder to run the target program in.
Command-line Arguments	Command-line arguments to pass to the target program.
Skip processes before gathering	List of processes to ignore when PIX is collecting data. Use this option when the target program is a helper program that launches the actual target program to be analyzed.

Fewer Options

This button toggles between a basic view of an experiment and an advanced view.

Start Experiment

Launches the target program and starts collecting data in a run file.