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Nsight Graphics 2026.4 Is Available Now



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Nsight Graphics
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Documentation

Nsight Graphics is bundled as part of DRIVE OS for development and deployment on DRIVE AGX-based autonomous vehicles.


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Nsight Graphics is bundled as part of the Jetson development suite in the JetPack SDK. Use the NVIDIA SDK Manager to deploy the JetPack SDK on Jetson.


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System Requirements


Windows
Linux
Operating Systems Requirements Windows 10: 24H2
Windows 11: 23H2, 24H2, 25H2 		Ubuntu 22.04, 24.04
Rocky Linux 9.4
Arch Linux 2021.05.01

Hardware Configurations


Hardware Configuration Single GPU System Dual GPU System Two systems, each with a GPU Microsoft Hybrid Equipped Notebook
Supported GeForce GPUs RTX 20-series
RTX 30-series
RTX 40-series
RTX 50-series 		Dell XPS 15
Optimus Equipped Notebook and others 		Microsoft Hybrid Equipped Notebook
Supported Quadro GPUs RTX-Series or better
Display driver Driver 535 and newer improves GPU profiling stability. Please use the latest driver for best results. Download here.
See here for a complete list of officially supported hardware.


Supported APIs

  • Direct3D 12
  • DirectX Raytracing
  • Vulkan 1.4
  • Vulkan Raytracing
  • OpenGL 4.2 - 4.6
  • OpenXR



Release Notes


2026.4 - 2026/10/29

  • GPU Trace Profiler
    • GPU Trace now shows DLSS Frame Generation (DLSS-FG) workload boundaries. Applications using DLSS-FG with Streamline version 2.12 or newer will see two rows instead of the traditional “Frames” row: the “Application Frames” row indicates the pacing of work submitted by the application, and the “Presented Frames” row indicates when the application frames and generated frames are presented on the display. This feature does not yet apply when running “Collect GPU Trace” in the Graphics Debugger.
  • Graphics Capture / Graphics Debugger
    • Graphics Capture now supports DLSS Frame Generation (DLSS-FG). Previously, DLSS-FG was automatically disabled by Graphics Capture. Applications using DLSS-FG with Streamline version 2.12 or newer will now capture and replay with the FG workload preserved, including in multi-frame captures. To disable FG during capture without modifying the application settings, use --disable-dlss-fg in “Troubleshooting -> Additional Capture Args” or with the ngfx-capture CLI tool.
  • Nsight Graphics MCP Server (Alpha)
    • Nsight Graphics now includes a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, allowing compatible AI agents to capture applications, inspect graphics captures, and analyze GPU traces. "Workflow" mode provides a simplified interface for common tasks, while "Native" mode exposes a broader set of tools for detailed inspection and automation. This Alpha feature is available on Windows, with Linux support planned for a future release.
  • View full release notes

    • 2026.3 - 2026/07/23

    • GPU Trace Profiler
      • You can now take a GPU Trace of a Graphics Capture live replay, allowing you to quickly profile your capture without leaving the Graphics Debugger. Have a shader that is performing poorly? Edit it in realtime using the shader editor and take a new trace to compare performance. The results are displayed directly in the Graphics Debugger UI without creating a standalone GPU Trace file. Once a trace is made, a layout menu is available to switch between debugging and profiling.
      • A timeline row now breaks down the SM warp occupancy on a per-shader basis, allowing you to directly visualize how individual shaders correlate to runtime occupancy. Use the Shader Warp Occupancy tab (next to the Metrics tab) to filter shaders by rank or occupancy range.
    • Graphics Capture / Graphics Debugger
      • The Graphics Debugger memory tool has several enhancements for memory analysis. View memory budgets and usage grouped by heap and memory type, then filter the view to investigate further. Use the new memory treemap to compare resource and heap sizes and reveal unused heap space.
    • View full release notes

      • 2026.2 - 2026/05/19

      • Graphics Capture / Graphics Debugger
        • Added support for capture and replay of Vulkan descriptor heaps as provided by the VK_EXT_descriptor_heap extension.
        • Graphics Capture now supports Vulkan SC on Windows/Linux.
      • GPU Trace
        • When "Per-Line Active Threads per Warp" has been collected (an option when collecting a GPU Trace on a Graphics Capture), a new column "Inactive Thread Latency %" is available in the Shader Profiler source views
      • View full release notes

        • 2026.1 - 2026/03/11

        • Graphics Capture / Graphics Debugger
          • Applications that are being "captured" can now be left open while actively debugging an application. This helps ensure you capture the scene of interest before closing out your application.
          • The Nsight Graphics SDK, released as beta, now allows for programmatic control of Graphics Capture and GPU Trace activities. This C++ library is header-only and straightforward to integrate. There are functions for injection, defining frame boundaries, and triggering captures and traces. An SDK User Guide is available in the documentation.
        • GPU Trace
          • [Preview] It's now possible to take a GPU Trace of a Graphics Capture live replay, allowing you to quickly profile your capture. Have a shader that is performing poorly? Edit it in realtime using the shader editor and take a new trace to compare performance. Look for the new button near the toolbar at the top. Please note that while this feature is considered stable, it is in a preview state and likely to change as it nears completion.
          • The Shader Profiler now offers the ability to view layer fusion breakage in order to help you better optimize cooperative vector operations. CoopVec is essential for neural rendering and this feature is an important part of the analysis workflow that will help you make neural workloads performant.
        • View full release notes

        2025.5 - 2025/12/04

        • 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.
        • View full release notes

        2025.4 - 2025/08/12

        • All activities now support the Slang shading language when using the Vulkan API. Slang is a Khronos initiative to provide a modern, open shading language to the graphics industry.
        • Graphics Capture has been promoted out of beta status. This release adds a number core capabilities, listed below, and includes many stability and bug fixes, including improvements in diagnosing and reporting error conditions that prevent successful captures or replays.
        • Added support for Hardware Events collection on the Blackwell architecture. When the 'Hardware Event System' option is enabled, a new Compute timeline row will show precise compute ranges, giving you visibility into how your compute workloads overlap on the GPU.
        • View full release notes

        2025.3 - 2025/05/29

        2025.2 - 2025/03/18

        • Graphics Capture offers a new set of tools for capturing and debugging D3D12 and Vulkan graphics applications. Capture acquisition is streamlined to capture one or more frames immediately to persistent disk storage, using either Nsight Graphics or the command-line tool ngfx-capture.
        • Once a Graphics Capture is taken, it can be opened for Graphics Debugging at any time. The capture file may even be analyzed in an offline mode that allows for analysis without application replay. Use familiar tools to debug API state, view events, objects, resources, raytracing acceleration structures, and images.
        • View full release notes

        2025.1 - 2025/01/30

        • Nsight Graphics now fully supports Blackwell GPUs, delivering complete parity with previous architectures and introducing powerful new features to take your workflows to the next level. This includes support for Capture/Replay, GPU Trace, the Shader Profiler, the Shader Debugger, as well as the Nsight Aftermath dump file viewer.
        • In addition to Blackwell architecture support, GPU Trace has been improved.
        • View full release notes

        View full release history here.





        Feature List

        View the full Nsight Graphics feature list.





        Archives

        Read older version release notes in the Nsight Graphics Revision History.





        Resources

        Nsight Graphics Documentation


        Release Notes

        Release notes and known issues.


        Nsight Tools Tutorial Center

        Access the latest resources to get started with Nsight Graphics.


        Installation Guide

        Guides on how to install NVIDIA Nsight Graphics.


        User Guide

        The user guide for NVIDIA Nsight Graphics.


        Copyright and Licenses

        Information on the NVIDIA Software License Agreement as well as third party software and tools used by Nsight Graphics.


        Documentation



        Tutorial Sessions

        Nsyst Ngfx

        Fundamentals of Ray Tracing Development using NVIDIA Nsight Graphics and NVIDIA Nsight Systems

        Learn how to utilize Nsight Graphics and Nsight Systems to profile and optimize 3D Applications that are using Ray Tracing.

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        CUDA 11

        Getting Started with Ray Tracing Graphics Tools

        We'll go through what tools are available to allow you to debug, profile, and optimize your modern graphics application.

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        CUDA 11

        Leveraging NVIDIA Graphics DevTools for High-performance Ray-tracing Applications

        Learn how to leverage a professional grade graphics debugger and profiler to integrate new technologies into modern applications.

        Watch
        gpu trace

        The Next Level of Optimization Advice with Nsight Graphics: GPU Trace

        GPU Trace introduces a new analysis tool that captures some of that knowledge by using powerful heuristics and rules.

        Watch



        Ngfx cpu trace

        NVIDIA Nsight Feature Spotlight: GPU Trace

        GPU Trace is a new frame-level profiler for graphics applications within NVIDIA NSight. With GPU Trace on RTX, developers can collect GPU performance data on a single pass.

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        Video Series

        Improve Shader Performance

        How to Improve Shader Performance by Resolving LDC Divergence

        Learn about how latency caused by LDC Divergence can be identified and resolved with help from Nsight Graphics.

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        Avoid Stalls and Hitches

        Avoiding Stalls and Hitches in DirectX 12

        How to identify, fix, and prevent hitches in DirectX 12 by understanding how the “critical path” affects frame time.

        Watch
        Build Acceleration Structure

        Building Acceleration Structures Using Async Compute

        Learn what async compute is and what it offers for building ray tracing acceleration structures.

        Watch




        Support