RAD Telemetry 1.1h Released!

We're back on our monthly release schedule -- this month we have bug fixes, performance improvements and some new platform support!

BETA iOS SUPPORT IS NOW AVAILABLE!

Run-Time

• Enhancement: we now have iOS support!
• Enhancement: additional support for unannounced platforms, please contact sales3@radgametools.com for more information
• Enhancement: additional enhancements for the WiiU platform
• Enhancement: quad buffering of Telemetry write buffers enabled on all platforms (previously this was only on PS3 and 360)
• Bugfix: RADEXPLINK definition mismatch if NTELEMETRY was defined and another RAD product was included
• Bugfix: PS3 strings were sometimes not sent over properly in some edge cases
• Bugfix: tmShutdown now compiles to TMERR_DISABLED instead of an empty statement when NTELEMETRY is defined
• Bugfix: handshake timeout now honors the timeout parameter to tmOpen instead of being hardcoded to 1s

Visualizer

• Change: removed confusing and vestigial tab 'Memory'

Server

• Bugfix: server is more tolerant of unknown string references sent by the run-time
• Bugfix: when -keeptmp was specified and the server connection crashed, the *.00 file was inadvertently deleted.  Fixed.

RAD Telemetry 1.1g Released!

Hey everyone, new release for Telemetry!  This is a relatively small update but still lots of good stuff going on!

Run-time

• Enhancement: TMOF_NO_PDB_LOOKUP added.  In some cases on Windows tmOpen can take a long time while doing PDB lookups of loaded modules.  This allows you to bypass that delay.
• Enhancement: Significantly better performance in the Telemetry processing thread on PS3, 360 and Windows.
• Change: default Telemetry thread priority increased to avoid starvation

Visualizer

• Enhancement: "Lock to end" checkbox is now persistent between sessions
• Enhancement: plotted zone times are now in the same plot group so you can compare scales
• Enhancement: Build information passed to tmOpen is now displayed in the session view
• Change: New license key system
• Change: Removed deprecated thread balance pie chart

Server

• Enhancement: a -maxsessions parameter has been added to tmserver so that it can be scriptable.  Now you can launch the server, tell it to capture N sessions, then have it exit when it's done capturing.

Telemetry 1.1f released!

Now that the holidays and GDC are behind us we're going to buckle down and get some pretty significant features and changes that our customers have asked for.  But before that we've released 1.1f with a lot of minor fixes and improvements.

Speaking of GDC, it was great meeting so many of our customers and getting positive feedback on Telemetry -- thanks for stopping by the booth!

Run-Time

• Enhancement: new plot types TMPT_TIME_US and TMPT_TIME_CLOCKS
• Bugfix: crash bug with Windows DX9 tmxgpu
• Bugfix: crash bug with TMCT_FILE and OS X
• Bugfix: tmSetLockStateMinTime wasn't checking some parameters in checked builds
• Bugfix: if the memory arena passed to tmInitializeContext wasn't zeroed out bad things could happen.  Telemetry now automatically zeroes that memory first.

Visualizer

• Enhancement: A very basic "search for zone" is implemented using Ctrl-F.  Does not support wildcards and only searches for zones that are currently loaded in memory.  A better implementation is in the works, but enough people asked for this that we've decided to provide this short term implementation.
• Enhancement: You can now plot a zone's time by right-clicking on it and choosing "Plot zone time".  As with search, you have to make sure that all zones you care about are in memory.  And again, this is a short term solution until we get a global solution in place.
• Enhancement: "lock to end" supported, so if watching live captures the last frame is visible at all times instead of scrolling off screen.
• Bugfix: Slow performance when rendering really wide zones 
• Bugfix: Right-click on some zones and zone types was sketchy
• Bugfix: Intermittent crashes when viewing a session with a combination of very short and very long frames.

Server

• Bugfix: rare race condition when accepting multiple profiling sessions from the same machine in less than one second

Misc

• Bugfix: tmSetLockStateMinTime return values were improperly documented
• Bugfix: tmSPUBindContextToListener function signature documentation was wrong

Telemetry 1.1e Released!

Even though it's been only a couple weeks since our last release we wanted to get another big one out before the holidays. We've made a lot of little enhancements, added support for a new platform, and, best of all, have implemented a very handy feature -- off-line performance capture!

As long time Telemetry users know, Telemetry's architecture is based on streaming data over the network to a server which acquires, processes, stores, and eventually serves up the data. Unfortunately this isn't practical in certain situations. For example, a testing lab may not have network access for security reasons; some consoles have notoriously poor networking performance (even while wired); or a test machine may not have access to a Telemetry server.

To address these concerns we've implemented off-line data capture. The only change you have to make is a parameter to tmOpen -- specify TMCT_FILE instead of TMCT_TCP. Now instead of writing to the network Telemetry will write to disk. When done you take the "tmdata" files and then import them into the Visualizer (or play them back to the server). It's that simple, and in some cases can make a dramatic (5-10x) performance difference.

Run-Time

• Enhancement: Performance improvements for 360 and PS3
• Enhancement: Added TMPI_START_TIME parameter to tmGetPlatformInformation
• Enhancement: Win32: Changed context switch trace management code in an effort to be more robust across a wider range of systems
• Enhancement: Duration of TCP send now has a plot automatically generated
• Enhancement: Added more send buffers to increase performance and prevent stalls while writing to the network
• Enhancement: TMCT_FILE for local mirror of network traffic (i.e. disconnected captures are now possible!)
• Enhancement: BETA support for new platform
• Change: PS3: Telemetry thread now defaults to hwthread 1
• Change: 360: Telemetry thread now defaults to hwthread 5

Server

• Enhancement: Greatly enhanced performance under certain conditions with lots of frames
• Bugfix: Occasional server crashes when open zones spanned a very large number of frames
• Change: removed TM_APP_STRING and TM_APP_TICK console spam

Visualizer

• Enhancement: "Import Data Files" feature added (related to TMCT_FILE support)

Other

• Bugfix: Some documentation was using tmDynamicString improperly
• Enhancement: Cleaned up example files
• Enhancement: Added 'tmimport' command to playback raw net files captured with TMCT_FILE sessions

Telemetry 1.1d Released!

This is another maintenance release for Telemetry. Thanks to everyone who submitted bug reports and feature requests!

Runtime

• Bugfix: calling tmInitializeContext on an active context would result in random crashes. Now it returns an error with checked builds.
• Enhancement: (Experimental) TMZF_PLOT_TIME_EXPERIMENTAL. Specifying this will generate a plot of times for the given zone.
• Enhancement: (Experimental) You can now register your own debug display function for the run time using tmSetParameter with TMP_DEBUG_PRINTER
• Bugfix: Win32 build was generating a benign warning/error with AppVerifier due to attempting to OpenThread a NULL handle
• Bugfix: TMXGPU: passing a NULL context to tmxgpu would result in crashes
• Bugfix: Linux and OS X 32-bit: dynamic strings would sometimes crash the run time

Visualizer

• Bugfix: TMMF_ICON_* messages weren't showing up in the message window
• Bugfix: Multiple different blob plugins were not handled correctly
• Bugfix: Fixed weird UI issues where zone display would pick up incorrect mouse events
• Bugfix: OS X: Ok/Cancel buttons in message box were reversed
• Bugfix: D3D: Too many plot samples crashed Visualizer
• Change: OS X: Defaults to 1280x800 window size

Server

• Bugfix: Fixed a couple causes of the 'hanshake times out' issue
• Bugfix: Fixed some server instability
• Bugfix: Blobs were not served up properly
• Enhancement: 32-bit Linux version available now

Other

• Bugfix: Updated UE3 integration docs
• Bugfix: Fixed missing documentation for tmsRegisterMessageHandler, tmPPURegisterSPUProgram and TmOpenFlag
• Enhancement: Added embedded server tutorial code

Telemetry 1.1c Released!!

This is a maintenance fix for Telemetry 1.1. As always, update all components in tandem!

Runtime

• Change: TMXERR_GPU_INVALID_CONTEXT is now returned by the tmxGpuInit functions if a NULL context is passed
• Change: Fixed spurious warnings when trying to close a NULL socket (now silently ignored)
• Bugfix: Unused parameter warning in tmxgpu
• Bugfix: Dynamic strings were not working properly on 32-bit OS X run time
• Bugfix: tmSendCallStack did not send proper data when given a callstack previously fetched via tmGetCallStack

Visualizer

• Changes: Zones are no longer arbitrarily split across frame boundaries
• Bugfix: Context switch rendering on 360 regression for 1.1
• Bugfix: Newlines were not always handled correctly in license file leading to "Corrupt Visualizer license" messages
• Bugfix: Minimize-then-maximize to black screen
• Bugfix: Visualizer's spawned editor is now found in path instead of requiring a full path name
• Bugfix: TMMF_ZONE_LABEL was inadvertently replacing labels even on aggregate zones (e.g. LOD zones)
• Bugfix: thin zones were incorrectly colored as LOD zones
• Bugfix: Visualizer plugins were occasionally not found at startup

Server

• Bugfix: Unbalanced leaves with enters were causing intermittent server crashes

Other

• Bugfix: Symbolizer bugs fixed
• Enhancement: Symbolizer now works correctly on OS X
• Enhancement: Additional platform support for symbolizer
• Change: UE3 integration docs updated

Telemetry 1.1a Released!!

Wow, been a long time coming, but this is a massive update that has implemented a ton of features and new platform support!

YOU WILL HAVE TO UPDATE ALL COMPONENTS AND REBUILD YOUR GAMES!! The protocols have changed to support our new features, so make sure you rebuild, relink, update your DLLs and run the new server and Visualizer.

SPU Support

So the big feature people have been waiting for is support for the PS3 SPU on Telemetry, and this required a significant amount of architectural work (since it effectively meant multiple processes), but it's done! It's a standard part of the Telemetry/PS3 distribution now.

OS X Support

That's right, we have OS X support, both 32-bit and 64-bit run-times, along with the Visualizer and command line server! The run-time is part of Telemetry/Mac but the Visualizer and server are available to licensees of any platform.

GPU Support

We now have support for benchmarking GPU calls on XBOX 360, PS3 and Direct3D (DX9,DX10, and DX11). We provide this as a layer on top of Telemetry's timespan features, and we support both synchronous and asynchronous operation.

Visualizer/D3D

The Visualizer now uses Direct3D on Windows instead of OpenGL. The OpenGL version is still available and will continue to be maintained (it's viz64gl.exe in the distribution). Using Direct3D should reduce some of the compatibility problems customers have seen with different video cards and drivers.

Linux Support

We now have support for 32-bit and 64-bit Linux run-times on Intel architectures, along with a command line server for Linux.

Additional changes are as follows:

Run-Time

• Change: tmSetParameter now takes a pointer to parameter instead of the parameter itself


• Change: PS3 library has been renamed to libtelemetryPS3.a


• Change: Linux static library now called libTelemetryX86.link.a or libTelemetryX64.link.a


• Bugfix: calling tmOpen after tmClose didn't work properly


• Bugfix: PS3 network connection issues


• Bugfix: NTELEMETRY was masking connection status constants


• Bugfix: Time wrapping on Linux wasn't handled properly

Visualizer

• Enhancement: Number of zones in a thread now displayed as part of tooltip over trackhead


• Change: Implicitly generated plots for internal Telemetry events (number of allocs, number of locks, etc.) removed


• Change: Timespans generate virtual Telemetry messages


• Change: Profiler rows are reasier to see


• Change: Visualizer input buffer is now larger, helping with extreme data flooding cases


• Change: Timespans now go to microsecond display if < 0.5ms in duration


• Bugfix: race condition that would lead to occasional crash


• Bugfix: Some stall zones were not being rendered properly


• Bugfix: Timespan rendering was broken in some cases


• Bugfix: Annotation handling resulted in loss of annotations if they were numeric


• Bugfix: Zone depth computations were inaccurate in some cases


• Bugfix: Timeline state background colors are stable


• Bugfix: Fragmented input data packets would occasionally cause a hang


• Bugfix: Out of range 64-bit plot values would cause a crash


• Bugfix: High CPU utilization in data processing and server connection threads in some situations

Server

• Enhancemenent: added -keeptmp option for testing


• Enhancement: Added offline processing of previousy stored tmp files


• Bugfix: Minor memory leak


• Bugfix: Server would occasionally resend duplicate lock events in certain flooding conditions


• Change: No longer limited to 64K top level zones per frame


• Change: Server buffers frame data instead of just the most recent frame


• Change: You can now register your own message handler for warning dialogs, etc. with the tms server library