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PIX on Windows

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PIX on Windows - Performance tuning and debugging for DirectX 12 games on Windows

GraphicsGame developmentPerformance / optimizationMicrosoft blogsMicrosoft dev blogs

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25’26
Posts
142 from 17 Jan 2017 to 28 Oct 2026
Posting
monthly (7 in the last year)
Kind
company blog
Feed
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/pix/feed/

2026 7

  1. PIX 2610.28 – the biggest release of 2026
  2. PIX 2606.18-preview: DirectX Dump Files and more
  3. PIX 2605.28-preview: previewing new PIX and D3D12 features
  4. PIX 2604.27004-preview – support for new D3D12 Preview features, and more
  5. PIX 2603.25 – misc bug fixes and improvements
  6. PIX 2602.25 and 2602.25-preview – support for new D3D features and misc quality-of-life improvements
  7. PIX 2601.15 – new Intel plugin, many buffer viewer improvements, and more

2025 12

  1. PIX 2509.25 – support for new D3D features and devices, and misc bug fixes
  2. PIX 2507.11 – misc bug fixes + improvements
  3. PIX 2505.30 and 2505.30-preview: support for DXR 1.2, Cooperative Vectors and more
  4. New memory profiling features in Timing Captures
  5. Power status, CPU frequency and CPU C-State counters
  6. PIX 2505.09 – Revamped UX, Improved Usability, and Many New Features
  7. Introducing Budget Profiles in Timing Captures
  8. Changes to PIX Events with a D3D context parameter
  9. Capturing video frames in Timing Captures
  10. PIX 2503.24: misc bug fixes
  11. PIX 2501.30-preview: Application Specific Driver State, Recreate At GPUVA and Tight Alignment
  12. PIX 2501.30 – Support for Shader Hash Bypass, bug fixes, and everything in 2412.12

2024 15

  1. PIX 2412.12 – Texture/Buffer/Visualizer improvements, Work Graph Shader Debugging, and many Timing Capture improvements
  2. Timing Capture Range Details “v2”
  3. The Timing Capture comparison layout
  4. PIX 2409.23 – Support for new devices, bug fixes, and everything in 2408.09
  5. Multi-process profiling support in Timing Captures
  6. PIX 2408.09 – Bug fixes + everything in 2408.05
  7. Timing Capture bookmarks
  8. Querying the PIX Timing Capture file format
  9. PIX 2408.05 – Custom Mesh/Texture Visualizers, faster playback, and a lot more
  10. PIX 2407.17-preview: Mesh Nodes in Work Graphs
  11. PIX 2405.15: Agility SDK 1.614 support and misc bug fixes
  12. Open sourcing the WinPixEventRuntime under MIT
  13. PIX 2403.08 – New D3D12 features + misc PIX improvements
  14. PIX 2402.07 – misc bug fixes
  15. Circular Timing Captures

2023 13

  1. PIX 2312.08: misc bug fixes and improvements
  2. Saving and Loading PIX Settings
  3. Defining custom regular expressions for consolidated events in the Timing Capture Metrics view
  4. Timing Capture Statistical Comparison Features
  5. PIX 2310.30: a faster PIX with many raytracing + other improvements
  6. PIX 2308.30: updated plugins + bug fixes
  7. PIX 2306.21-preview: Work Graphs support
  8. PIX 2305.10: support for updated RenderPasses + misc other improvements
  9. PIX 2303.30: Misc bug fixes + preview GPU Upload heap support
  10. PIX and ID3D12ManualWriteTrackingResource
  11. Programmatic Timing Captures now available
  12. Memory profiling support for allocations made from a title’s custom allocator
  13. PIX 2303.02: You asked, we listened! A bumper PIX release

2022 11

  1. PIX-2212.22-preview: Experimental raygen shader debugging and DXR resource access detection
  2. PIX 2210.10-preview: Initial support for Preview Agility SDK v706
  3. PIX 2208.10: SM 6.7 support, GPU and Timing Capture Improvements
  4. Using performance budgets in the Timing Capture metrics view
  5. PIX 2206.20: Servicing release with new AMD plugin
  6. PIX 2205.24: Unlocking Arm and Qualcomm development
  7. Timing Capture Metrics View improvements in PIX 2203.30
  8. PIX 2203.30: Export to C++, UI changes and more!
  9. PIX-2203.07: Support for DirectStorage
  10. PIX 2201.24: New Timing Capture Features
  11. Graphing Consolidated Events in the Timing Capture Metrics View

2021 22

  1. Critical path analysis in Timing Captures
  2. Improving PIX, thanks to your feedback!
  3. PIX 2108.18: New programmatic capture APIs and much more
  4. File IO profiling support for archive files
  5. PIX survey – we want to hear from you!
  6. New File IO-related counters in the Timing Capture Metrics View
  7. Symbol loading improvements to PIX Timing Captures
  8. PIX 2107.01: GPU Event List Navigation Aids and Column Statistics
  9. CPU Sample collection issue fixed in a recent Windows Update
  10. Timing Capture Sampling Profiler video
  11. Converting previous versions of Timing Captures
  12. Usability improvements to the Timing Capture Metrics View
  13. New CPU Sampling Profiler C++ Source Code View
  14. Tips & Tricks: How the Pros Use PIX to Make Their Games Better on Xbox and Windows
  15. PIX 2104.20: DirectX 12 Agility SDK Support, New Occupancy Graphs, Timing Capture Improvements
  16. PIX 2103.16: Recently Launched Apps, Environment Variables, Camera Improvements in the Mesh Viewer
  17. PIX Timing Captures require full PDBs
  18. Finding memory leaks using Timing Captures
  19. WinPixEventRuntime 2102.09: Minor fixes and optimizations
  20. Filtering CPU Samples by one or more PIX Events
  21. Function Summary and Callgraph captures are now deprecated
  22. PIX 2101.27: AMD raytracing counters, DXIL improvements, and more

2020 21

  1. New documentation page: Analyzing CPU samples in Timing Captures
  2. Analyzing CPU samples in Timing Captures
  3. New documentation page: Analyzing Win32 File IO performance using Timing Captures
  4. Analyzing Win32 File IO performance in Timing Captures
  5. New documentation page: Analyzing Memory usage and performance in Timing Captures
  6. PIX 2010.26 – Updated Command List Execution View & Descriptor Heap Viewer
  7. Analyzing Memory usage and performance in Timing Captures
  8. Capturing GPU Work
  9. Debugging D3D11 apps using D3D11On12
  10. GPU Captures: Support for D3D video
  11. Changes to the capture experience
  12. GPU Captures: How we support placed and reserved resources
  13. PIX 2008.26: Performance Improvements
  14. PIX Release 2008.26 – Our biggest update to GPU captures since 2017
  15. New documentation page: Finding and Analyzing Context Switches
  16. Analyzing stalls and context switches in Timing Captures
  17. PIX 2007.29 – Dark Theme, bug fixes
  18. PIX 2006.26 – Fence Signal/Wait Arrows in GPU Captures
  19. PIX 2004.27 – Improved struct support in the Buffer Viewer, CPU Memory and File IO Data in Timing Captures
  20. PIX 2003.26 – DirectX 12 Ultimate and DXIL debugging
  21. WinPixEventRuntime 2001.27

2019 17

  1. PIX 1911.27 – New Buffer Formatter and Capture from Launch
  2. PIX 1909.23 – New timing capture features, performance improvements and bug fixes
  3. PIX 1908.16 – Shader debugging fixes
  4. PIX CPU Tools: Introduction to New Timing Captures Videos
  5. Windows 10 Servicing Release KB4505903 required for instrumented CPU captures
  6. PIX 1908.02 – Fixes for customer issues, plus DXR and New Timing Capture improvements
  7. GPU timing data in New Timing Captures
  8. PIX 1906.26 – Minor update fixes PIX on Insider Preview builds of Windows
  9. PIX 1906.14 – GPU Timing in New Timing Captures
  10. PIX CPU Tools: Finding and Analyzing Context Switches
  11. PIX CPU Tools: Populating the Range Details view
  12. PIX CPU Tools: Graphing PIXReportCounter values in the Metrics View
  13. PIX CPU Tools Reboot!
  14. PIX 1904.23 – New Timing Capture preview and improved DXIL shader debugging
  15. PIX 1903.26 – Occupancy for Turing GPUs and Variable Rate Shading
  16. PIX 1903.12 – High Frequency Counters
  17. PIX 1901.28 – Timing Data Improvements and support for new GPUs

2018 9

  1. PIX 1812.14 – Playback Adapter Selection
  2. PIX 1810.24 – Support for final DirectX Raytracing API
  3. PIX-1810.02 – Direct3D11 and WinML
  4. PIX 1807.19 – Shader Table Viewer
  5. PIX 1806.20 – GPU Occupancy for AMD GPUs
  6. PIX 1806.11 – Fence signals and waits visualization, major UI streamlining, new Edit and Continue experience, and more
  7. New PIX CPU Profiling Videos
  8. PIX 1803.25 – GPU Occupancy, CPU sampling, automatic shader PDB resolution, and more
  9. PIX 1803.16-raytracing – DirectX Raytracing support

2017 15

  1. PIX 1711.28 – GPU memory usage, TDR debugging, DXIL shader debugging, and child process GPU capture
  2. PIX survey – we want to hear from you!
  3. PIX 1709.18.004 – Dr. PIX bandwidth on AMD and Intel, access tracking for bindless resources, more performance warnings, and pixtool save-resource
  4. PIX 1707.25 – counter rollup, new Dr. PIX experiments, pixel kill reason, and pixtool.exe
  5. PIX 1706.25.002 – system monitor and timing capture improvements
  6. PIX 1705.17 – Intel GPU counters
  7. PIX 1705.16 – AMD GPU counters, preliminary DXIL support, and more warnings
  8. PIX 1704.27 – D3D12 usage warnings, Dr. PIX, and CPU hotpath analysis
  9. PIX 1704.14-servicing – graphics driver compatibility fix
  10. PIX videos on Channel 9
  11. PIX 1703.20.002 – NVIDIA GPU counters, file IO traces, shader edit & continue, and pixel cost visualizer
  12. Using PIX on hybrid graphics systems
  13. PIX 1702.23.002 – visualizers, better warnings UI, memory capture type tracking, and MSAA sample inspection
  14. PIX 1701.26 – GPU counter rollup, thread names, and high DPI UI
  15. Introducing PIX on Windows (beta)