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Collecting and Viewing Data

OpenGL Driver Monitor lets you collect system-wide data for a specific OpenGL driver. You can collect data for the system that you are running the driver monitor on or a system that you already set up for remote monitoring. (See “Monitoring an OpenGL Driver Remotely.”) The next few sections show how to collect the data.

After OpenGL Driver Monitor launches, choose a driver to investigate from the Monitors > Driver Monitors menu. Most systems have only one driver, but if your system has more than one graphics card installed, you’ll see more than one entry. After choosing a driver, the driver window opens with a view of an empty graph. You’ll notice that the Driver Monitor Parameters list below the graph is empty.

Click Parameters to open a drawer that lists all the driver parameters that you can monitor. Hover the pointer over a parameter name to see its description. See also “OpenGL Driver Monitor Parameters” for definitions of the parameter names and for cross-references between the symbolic name and the descriptive name for a parameter.

Either double-click each of the parameters (shown in Figure 1-1) you want to monitor, or drag them to the Driver Monitor Parameters list below the graph. As you might expect, not all parameters are equally useful for every scenario. You’ll need to choose accordingly.

Keep in mind that the parameters shown in Figure 1-1 are for a particular driver. Not all drivers support the same parameters, so it’s possible that the list you see doesn’t match either what’s shown in the figure or what’s listed in the glossary.

You’ll notice that when you see similarly named parameters, one of them is typically a “super parameter.” The value of a super parameter includes the values of all its “child parameters.” For example, the super parameter commandBytes (Total Command Data) includes all quantities represented by the similarly named parameters command2DBytes (2D Command Data), commandGLBytes (OpenGL Command Data), and commandDVDBytes (DVD Command Data).


Figure 1-1  The parameters drawer

The parameters drawer

In this section:

Viewing Graphed Data
Viewing Tabular Data
Enabling and Disabling Parameters


Viewing Graphed Data

After you choose a parameter, OpenGL Driver Monitor adds it to the Driver Monitor Parameter list and starts to display data on the graph and in the columns next to the parameter name. Figure 1-2 shows the driver monitor graph window after displaying two parameters—CPU Wait for CPU and Current Free Video Memory. If you prefer to use colors other than the default ones for graphing the values, click the color well for a parameter and choose another from the color panel that appears.


Figure 1-2  The driver monitor graph window

The driver monitor graph window

The y-axis values on the left side of the graph are values that represent different units depending on the parameter. The y-axis values on the right side represent percentages. Keep the following in mind when reading the graph:

You can adjust the scale of the x-axis and the base (log or linear) of the y-axis to help you see changes in the values.

Viewing Tabular Data

You can view the data in tabular format if you prefer. This lets you compare running values among the parameters you are monitoring, as shown in Figure 1-3.


Figure 1-3  The driver monitor table window

The driver monitor table window

Enabling and Disabling Parameters

You enable and disable the driver monitor parameters that you are monitoring by using the Action pop-up menu shown in Figure 1-4. You can also click the Show column to show or hide data for a particular parameter.


Figure 1-4  The Action pop-up menu

The Action pop-up menu



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© 2007 Apple Inc. All Rights Reserved. (Last updated: 2007-12-04)