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Debuggers

Started by Nurgle Apr 17, 2004 at 6:12 PM 11 replies 1.9k views

Original Post

Apr 17, 2004 at 6:12 PM

Howdy folks I''m currently working on a debugger aimed at game development, and I''m wondering what features you find are lacking in whatever debuggers you usually use? (SoftICE users need not apply) Thanks, Nurgle

Indeterminatus

Apr 17, 2004 at 6:14 PM

automatically fixing the bug!

sorry for the pointless post, I''m using SoftICE...

Indeterminatus

--si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses--

Oluseyi

526

Oluseyi

Apr 17, 2004 at 6:19 PM

The Nurgle is back!

Ahem...

I suppose that those developers who can''t use remote debugging for whatever reason would like some sort of tools that help them deal with intermittent behavioral glitches, the kind that would normally be watched for except that the game must be running fullscreen for the bug to be reproduced. I have no specifics, but I''ve read that complaint several times.

Nurgle

Author

Nurgle

Apr 17, 2004 at 6:30 PM

Olu...

I'm writing the debugger with that in mind. The big "selling point" will be that it hijacks DirectX/OpenGL and watches for flip calls. When it's called, it adds its own information to the framebuffer (watch data, debug messages etc etc) for at-a-glance debugging.

[edited by - Nurgle on April 17, 2004 7:37:34 PM]

Oluseyi

526

Oluseyi

Apr 17, 2004 at 7:46 PM

Bitchin''!

If I think of anything else, I''ll be sure to post back here. (Are you still working on VectorC?)

Nurgle

Author

Nurgle

Apr 17, 2004 at 7:48 PM

no. Havn''t worked at Codeplay for a couple of years. This is my own project.

Archi

Apr 17, 2004 at 7:55 PM

Perhaps it could discover memory leaks... but that''s more of the profiler.

Nurgle

Author

Nurgle

Apr 17, 2004 at 8:00 PM

Memory leak detection is planned, as well as a decent profiler (IMO, bad perfermance is a bug).

Features planned:
- DirectX/OpenGL overlay
- Profiler
- Leak detection
- Scriptable breakpoints (e.g. break if certain variables are certain values)
- Lint feature
- Bug tracking
- Save/Restore states

Flarelocke

Apr 17, 2004 at 8:54 PM

quote:
I''m writing the debugger with that in mind. The big "selling point" will be that it hijacks DirectX/OpenGL and watches for flip calls. When it''s called, it adds its own information to the framebuffer (watch data, debug messages etc etc) for at-a-glance debugging.

This sounds damn cool. I was gonna suggest trying to think of something to allow debugging a fullscreen game without dual monitors, but it sounds like you''ve got this covered. If you haven''t thought of this already, I suggest listening for keyboard input and using one (customizable) key to bring up a debugging console (like gdb), which would overlay over the normal screen.

Nurgle

Author

Nurgle

Apr 18, 2004 at 3:24 PM

Consoles (as in Quake-style) are planned too...

[edited by - Nurgle on April 18, 2004 7:46:57 PM]

msn12b

Apr 18, 2004 at 7:02 PM

Is this something you''d compile into an app or a standalone application?

MSN

angryzenmaster @ livejournal

Nurgle

Author

Nurgle

Apr 19, 2004 at 7:48 AM

msn: Stand alone, of course.

AP: That is a *really* bad idea, and I''ll tell you why:

Full-screen and windowed apps behave differently at kernel level, so making the app think it''s fullscreen when it isn''t, will result in a different behaviour.

I''ve thought up some other features that I''d be interesting in hearing opinions on:

* Playback - Logs memory changes allowing a Step-Back mode (Useful for finding overflows and the like)

* Multiple monitor support - output different data to different screens

* Network debugging - Low-level packet diagnostics

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