The AMD Radeon GPU Detective serves as a valuable resource for developers in pinpointing crashes associated with Radeon graphics cards. While top-tier graphics cards are not immune to crashes, AMD has taken a proactive step to introduce the Radeon GPU Detective (RGD), an assisting utility tailored for diagnosing issues related to Radeon graphics card crashes. This innovative tool, RGD, plays a crucial role in retrieving and examining crash dumps, subsequently producing a comprehensive report that aids in the troubleshooting process.
The comprehensive report furnished by the tool includes crucial insights like page fault particulars, resource specifications, and execution markers that offer indications about the graphics card’s workload prior to the crash.
The inaugural version, 1.0, of the Radeon GPU Detective is adept at identifying instances of graphics card crashes exclusively on the Windows operating system, notably TDR (Timeout Detection and Recovery) errors within Direct3D 12 applications. It’s notable, however, that earlier APIs like DirectX 11 or DirectX 9, in addition to other APIs such as Vulkan, do not presently fall under the ambit of supported platforms. Presently, compatibility with the Radeon RX 7000 (RDNA 3) and Radeon RX 6000 (RDNA 2) series is established. As for whether AMD will extend this compatibility to encompass older Radeon graphics cards, remains to be seen.
The tool enables developers to initiate the Crash Analysis mode within the Radeon Developer Panel (RDP) before intentionally reproducing the crash scenario. Once the crash is triggered, the tool generates an analysis file that contains insights instrumental in uncovering the root cause of the crash. These insights include:
1. Execution Marker Information: This data highlights the ongoing render passes and draw calls that were active during the crash event. Developers can even integrate custom markers using the AGS (AMD GPU Services) library to enhance analysis.
2. Page Fault-Related Data: If the crash is attributed to a page fault, the analysis file includes details about the specific virtual address causing the fault. Furthermore, comprehensive information regarding any resources (such as heaps, textures, and buffers) associated with the problematic virtual address is provided, complete with the developers’ assigned resource names.
3. Memory Event Timeline: The generated file also presents a timeline of memory-related events like Create, Destroy, and Evict, exclusively filtered for the relevant resources.
By default, the crash analysis file is produced in a text format. For automation-friendly processing, the tool offers the flexibility to configure the analysis file to be generated in JSON format.
The Radeon GPU Detective (RGD) is an integral component of the Radeon Developer Tool Suite (RDTS), accessible for download from here.
It’s important to highlight that RGD v1.0 mandates the installation of the most recent Adrenalin drivers, with a minimum version of 23.7.2. You can obtain the latest Adrenalin drivers through this link. The code for Radeon GPU Detective is open-sourced, so that you can play with it on the Radeon GPU Detective repository on GitHub.
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