Apitrace trim --auto --calls usecase

[Carl Worth]

Samaneh Kazemi <kazemi.samaneh at gmail.com> writes:
>    I was looking at different options which apitrace provides. I was
> wondering what are the typical use cases of using "--auto" option.

The idea of this option is to allow a user to say something like:

	I want to trim this trace down to only frame 25.

    and to express that with a call such as:

	apitrace trim --auto --frames=25 <my-file.trace>

This tells apitrace to include all calls from frame 25 in the (trimmed)
output, and to also automatically determine which calls from previous
frames also need to be included (for example, to create textures or
shaders that are referenced in frame 25).

Does that make a little more sense?

> And in this case, what is the difference between "--auto --calls" and
> "--auto --frames".

With --calls you would be specifying a specific range of call numbers to
include in the trimmed output. It's likely much easier for users to use
--frames to describe actual frames of interest. Internally, apitrace
will map from frame numbers to their relevant call numbers, and
everything will be determined with call numbers.

So if frame 25 consists of calls in the range 2500-6300 then:

	--frames=25

    would be equivalent to:

	--calls=2500-6300

but the former is probably easier for the user to specify.

>    I also tried apitrace for a ioquake 3 game. The replay doesn't work
> for me. Does apitrace support video games?

Apitrace does support a large number of video games. You likely just
encountered a bug with this particular game. If you can provide more
details, (such as posting a trace which doesn't replay), perhaps someone
can investigate the bug.

-Carl
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