NVIDIA Nsight Perf SDK
Explore GPU performance profiling for graphics applications and long-running AI workloads.
Choose Your Workflow
For long-running, distributed AI workloads, NVIDIA Nsight™ Perf SDK for AI preserves selected GPU and CPU performance metrics and execution context from the original run so developers can investigate intermittent issues later.
Preserve the Evidence
Run the collection layer alongside the workload so selected performance metrics and execution context from intermittent behavior are available after the event.
Preserve Evidence From the Original Run
Traditional profiling works when a workload can be paused or replayed and an issue can be reproduced while a detailed profiler is attached.
Long-running, distributed training and inference workloads make that workflow difficult. Intermittent behavior may disappear, and recreating the full environment can be costly or impractical.
Nsight Perf SDK provides an always-on NVIDIA CUDA™/GPU collection layer that preserves selected performance metrics and execution context from the original run. It is a focused record—not a full system trace or kernel profile.
Analyze the Original Run in Google Perfetto
Google Perfetto is the supported analysis and visualization experience available today for data collected through Nsight Perf SDK.
Inspect selected performance metrics and execution context on a timeline, identify the interval surrounding an intermittent event, and narrow the next investigation.
Move From Signal to Deeper Profiling
Monitoring systems such as NVIDIA DCGM and OpenTelemetry can signal that a system may be unhealthy. Nsight Perf SDK preserves performance evidence tied to the workload activity that produced it.
Use that evidence to investigate what happened in the original run and determine whether deeper system-wide tracing or kernel-level analysis is needed.
NVIDIA Nsight Systems provides deeper system-wide analysis; NVIDIA Nsight Compute provides detailed kernel-level analysis. Nsight Perf SDK complements these tools rather than replacing them.
Nsight Perf SDK supplies an always-on CUDA/GPU collection layer between workload activity and the compatible tools developers use to investigate it. It complements monitoring and deeper profiling tools rather than replacing them.
NVIDIA Nsight Compute
Provides detailed performance metrics and analysis for individual CUDA kernels after the investigation has narrowed to kernel-level behavior.
NVIDIA Nsight Systems
Provides deeper, focused system-wide tracing across CPUs, GPUs, operating-system activity, and application libraries after an investigation has narrowed.
Google Perfetto
The supported analysis and visualization experience available today. Use its timeline to inspect selected performance metrics and execution context collected from the original run.
NVIDIA Nsight™ Perf SDK for Graphics is a profiling toolbox for DirectX, Vulkan, and OpenGL that enables you to collect GPU performance metrics directly from your application.
Real-time Perf Triage
Enable high-level performance triage via real-time collection and on-screen visualization of GPU performance metrics. The new GPU Periodic Sampler collects device-level metrics at high sampling rates with low overhead.
NVIDIA GPU performance metrics
Profile In-Application
Integrate GPU performance metric collection into your application or graphics developer tool of choice. Activate profiling from your own custom programmatic triggers. Choose the list of GPU metrics to collect, customize your output, and keep control over your workflow
Real-time Perf Triage
Generate detailed profiler reports on every developer and artist change. Add dedicated perf regression criteria by inspecting GPU metric values.
Real-Time Performance HUD
Add continuous performance metrics collection to your code, and leverage the built-in HUD renderer to effortlessly enable real-time, high-level performance triage.
Explore panels with metrics on SM, L2 cache, ROP, VRAM, and various other subunits to gain an early understanding of the performance characteristics and potential bottlenecks of the scene as you move through it.
The HUD- and Periodic Sampler-utility classes also serve as an example for creating your own powerful, low-overhead, real-time workflows on top of the low-level Nsight Perf SDK API.
Timeline Viewer
Examine a snapshot of your application’s performance with the Nsight Perf SDK one-shot sampling mode.
This allows you to examine hardware activity with minimal overhead. Nsight Perf SDK’s high-frequency sampling collects key GPU metrics in sharp detail. You can visualize unit throughputs, warp occupancy, draw calls, and more on the new Timeline Viewer.
HTML Profiler Report Generator
Generate detailed profiler reports with minimal effort. Simply insert a few calls at Graphics API Device Initialization, Present/SwapBuffers, a Keypress handler, or an automated trigger.
Insert annotations (PushRange/PopRange) around GPU workloads to collect additional reports per region of execution. The report generator automatically collects 100s of GPU metrics of interest; there is no need to study these complex topics on first usage.
The reports provide a top-down representation of GPU performance, with fast navigation to the top performance limiters. Quickly determine the workload type, pipeline activity and utilization, shader latency reasons, and 3D data flow.
View Other Tools Within the Nsight Suite
Nsight Perf SDK is part of the NVIDIA Nsight Developer Tools suite, a collection of powerful tools, libraries, and SDKs that enable developers to build, debug, and profile software utilizing the latest accelerated computing hardware.
Nsight Graphics
NVIDIA Nsight Graphics is a standalone developer tool with ray-tracing support that enables you to debug, profile, and export frames built with Direct3D, Vulkan, OpenGL, OpenVR, and the Oculus SDK.
Nsight Compute
Nsight Compute is an interactive kernel profiler for CUDA applications. It provides detailed performance metrics and API debugging via a user interface and command-line tool. It also provides a customizable, data-driven user interface and metric collection that can be extended with analysis scripts for post-processing results..
Nsight Systems
NVIDIA Nsight Systems is a system-wide performance analysis tool designed to visualize an application’s algorithms, help you identify the largest opportunities to optimize, and tune to scale efficiently across any quantity or size of CPUs and GPUs.
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