The Graphics Debugger now includes the Shader Editing feature. Shader Editing allows you to edit a shader in the debugger and see its impact immediately. It allows for rapid iteration, helping you to streamline your development.
When recording in GPU Trace, all new traces are shown in a dialog window that allows you to rename them, and add user comments, and generally organize your traces as they are being recorded, for example when changing application settings between recordings.
A long timeout is required for shader debugging, but this can impact the ability to collect GPU crash dumps from Nsight Aftermath. In order to better control this timeout, you will now be notified at login time when key system settings like the TDR timeout are configured for shader debugging. The reminder comes as a dialog at reboot, with the option to automatically restore the settings.
Performance of selection on the timeline was improved.
RT Live state location now shows the full call stack.
Added support for capture, replay, and visualization of Vulkan Cluster Template geometries (requires driver version 590)
Added support for visualizing Linear Swept Sphere (LSS) geometry in the Ray Tracing Inspector
Added support for capture, replay, and visualization of D3D12 Opacity Micromaps (OMM)
Added support for DirectStorage 1.3 and the EnqueueRequests API
When launching applications that have a longer startup time, the user is now notified via a dialog box to indicate that the application has not hung.
Added support for the OpenRM driver stack on Linux, which means that the shader debugger can now be used on Linux with Blackwell GPUs.
Improved local debugging stability by having the Focus Picker respect the GPU selected for running the Nsight Graphics application, reducing chances for conflicts with the GPU being debugged.
In-flight shaders now display their entire call stack rather than just the line of crashed code.
Markers now display their text directly in the Aftermath Markers list. The full marker payload viewer is still available to use for longer multi-line markers or non-plain-text marker data.
The documentation has been updated to a modern template, and reorganized so that all information relevant to an activity is located in the hierarchy under that activity. Features available from the new template include a light/dark mode toggle in the upper right, and highlighting of search terms when clicking on a search result.
The auto-update workflow introduced in 2025.4 has been improved and can be used to update to 2025.5 directly in the UI. Simply click on the version alert, or choose “Help -> Check For Updates…”. By default it will replace previously installed versions, but this behavior can be changed in the dialog prior to starting the update.
The Approximate Active Threads Per Warp Histogram, originally introduced in Nsight Graphics 2024.3, has been removed from all views in GPU Trace. While the histogram provided useful information about Active Threads Per Warp in many cases, there were some scenarios where the information was inaccurate, and there was no way to provide a measure of confidence in the data. We are working on an alternate approach that will be introduced in an upcoming release. In the meantime, the Frame Debugger Shader Profiler can still be used to measure accurate Active Threads Per Warp.
Windows 10 support has now been deprecated and, Windows 11 will be the primary focus of testing and support. Support for Nsight Graphics on Windows 10 will end in the near future. While, Nsight Graphics may still run on unsupported Windows distributions, we cannot guarantee compatibility or support outside of the listed distributions.
In the next release of Nsight Graphics, the Frame Debugger will be renamed to the “OpenGL Frame Debugger”, reflecting the fact that the Graphics Capture activity is only supported for capture and replay of D3D12 and Vulkan applications. Use of D3D12 and Vulkan in the Frame Debugger may continue to work but is not guaranteed or supported.
Some GPU SKUs not typically encountered on consumer desktop systems may report "Unsupported GPU" errors.