Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jul 13, 2026

RenderDoc

RenderDoc is a free and open source frame debugger that can be used to analyze single frames generated by other software programs such as games. It can provide in-depth analysis of single frames from any application that uses Vulkan, D3D11, OpenGL & OpenGL ES, or D3D12. RenderDoc also allows the user to manipulate a captured frame to inspect different things such as pipeline stage, commands, texture maps, models, assets, and more. Furthermore, it is able to capture assets outside the view of the game's camera and supports analyzing frame rendering costs on the graphics processing unit.

Last revised
Jul 13, 2026
Read time
≈ 2 min
Length
408 w
Citations
17
Source
Wikipedia ↗
RenderDoc
DeveloperBaldur Karlsson
Release2014-02-25
Stable release
1.40 / September 5, 2025 (2025-09-05)
Operating systemAndroid, Google Stadia, Linux, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows1
PlatformCross-platform
LicenseMIT License
Websiterenderdoc.org
RepositoryRenderdoc on Github

RenderDoc is a free and open source frame debugger that can be used to analyze single frames generated by other software programs such as games. It can provide in-depth analysis of single frames from any application that uses Vulkan, D3D11, OpenGL & OpenGL ES, or D3D12.23 RenderDoc also allows the user to manipulate a captured frame to inspect different things such as pipeline stage, commands, texture maps, models, assets, and more.456 Furthermore, it is able to capture assets outside the view of the game's camera and supports analyzing frame rendering costs on the graphics processing unit.78

Optimizing GPU programs is about finding bottlenecks. RenderDoc provides information of the calls on the GPU, the number of invocation of each shader, and the number of primitives and fragments generated.9

Baldur Karlsson started RenderDoc development as a spare-time project out of need for a reliable debugger and was then expanded to support more platforms.1011 In 2014 Crytek announced the source code for RenderDoc is released for free.1213 At GDC 2018, AMD announced that Radeon GPU Profiler would include support for RenderDoc.14 RenderDoc also integrates with well known game engines such as Unity and Unreal Engine.1516 Oculus maintains its own fork of RenderDoc.17

References

References

  1. "RenderDoc". Retrieved 2022-10-08.
  2. "This Is How A Single Frame Is Rendered In A Modern 3D Engine". 15 March 2015. Archived from the original on March 15, 2015.
  3. Gach, Ethan (10 September 2016). "Picking Apart A Single Frame In DOOM".
  4. "LearnOpenGL - Debugging".
  5. "Watch the footy play out on your dining table thanks to AI and augmented reality". 25 June 2018. Archived from the original on 8 July 2018. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
  6. "Bringing Galaxy on Fire 3 to Vulkan: Vulkan on Android". 16 October 2017.
  7. "GPU Performance for Game Artists". 5 July 2017.
  8. "Where Are You Spending Your GPU Performance Budget?". 19 May 2020.
  9. "Profiling and Optimization of Large Biomolecular Scenes" (PDF).
  10. "Key Release: Crytek's graphics debugger RenderDoc | Game Development Tools & Tech | Develop". Archived from the original on 2014-04-25. Retrieved 2014-04-25.
  11. "RenderDoc gains PowerVR support". 9 March 2018.
  12. "Crytek is giving away its new Renderdoc graphics debugger for free". 27 February 2014.
  13. "Crytek releases RenderDoc source code". MCV. 8 May 2014.
  14. "AMD at GDC 2018". 21 March 2018.
  15. "Unity - Manual: RenderDoc Integration".
  16. "RenderDoc".
  17. "Use RenderDoc for Oculus for GPU Profiling: Unity | Oculus Developers".