Uploaded December 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Nsight Graphics 2025.5 is available now. In this release spotlight, we explore the newest features for high-performance graphics development.
Graphics Capture provides a new foundation of tools and workflows for debugging D3D12 and Vulkan applications. You can now edit shaders when replaying a capture. This allows you to rapidly iterate without restarting, and see how your changes affect timing and visuals. To inspect and modify shaders, you’ll need to start Live Replay mode. Choose the shader from the API Inspector or Shader Browser. You can freely edit the shader or any included files and also configure the compiler. Compiling a shader creates a revision history, and you can select revisions to quickly compare them.
Linear Swept Spheres were introduced with the Blackwell GPU architecture for optimized ray tracing of strand-based hair. When using Graphics Capture, you can now see LSS primitives in the Ray Tracing Inspector, including the performance analysis modes such as the traversal timing heatmap.
GPU Trace now shows a list of all traces taken during the session, replacing the dialog that only showed the most recent trace. In the new dialog you can rename traces, add user comments, and choose which ones to open. This eases workflows where you are taking multiple traces in a row with different settings in your application.
The responsiveness of the user interface has been significantly improved when selecting timeline regions that have dense shader profiler information. The selected data is now processed in the background, allowing you to continue inspecting the trace until the tables fill in.
In the Aftermath GPU Crash Dump Viewer, shaders that were running at the time of the crash now show a full call stack, clarifying the exact context of shader execution at crash time. Likewise, the Ray Tracing Live State Viewer in GPU Trace also shows the full stack now, making it easier to find opportunities to reduce live state.
Nsight Graphics now offers to restore Windows system settings that are modified when running the shader debugger, in particular the TDR timeout delay. If you continue to use the system without resetting the TDR, a window will remind you upon each reboot and offer to set it back.
Finally, we’ve updated the documentation with a modern theme and re-organized the hierarchy to be easier to browse. Some features of the new theme include a dark mode / light mode toggle, and highlighting of search terms when clicking on a result.
Path Tracing Optimization in Indiana Jones™: Shader Execution Reordering and Live State Reductions
developer.nvidia.com/blog/path-tracing-optimization-in-indiana-jones-shader-execution-reordering-and-live-state-reductions
Download Nsight Graphics:
developer.nvidia.com/nsight-graphics
Get started with Nsight Tools Tutorials:
developer.nvidia.com/tools-tutorials
00:00 - Introduction
00:36 - Graphics Capture: Dynamic Shader Editing
01:11 - LSS Hair in Ray Tracing Inspector
01:31 - GPU Trace Workflow & Performance Improvements
02:06 - Full Shader Call Stacks in More UIs
02:34 - Shader Debugger: System Settings Restoration
02:51 - Documentation Refresh
03:06 - Outro
Nsight Graphics 2025.5 is available now. In this release spotlight, we explore the newest features for high-performance graphics development.
Graphics Capture provides a new foundation of tools and workflows for debugging D3D12 and Vulkan applications. You can now edit shaders when replaying a capture. This allows you to rapidly iterate without restarting, and see how your changes affect timing and visuals. To inspect and modify shaders, you’ll need to start Live Replay mode. Choose the shader from the API Inspector or Shader Browser. You can freely edit the shader or any included files and also configure the compiler. Compiling a shader creates a revision history, and you can select revisions to quickly compare them.
Linear Swept Spheres were introduced with the Blackwell GPU architecture for optimized ray tracing of strand-based hair. When using Graphics Capture, you can now see LSS primitives in the Ray Tracing Inspector, including the performance analysis modes such as the traversal timing heatmap.
GPU Trace now shows a list of all traces taken during the session, replacing the dialog that only showed the most recent trace. In the new dialog you can rename traces, add user comments, and choose which ones to open. This eases workflows where you are taking multiple traces in a row with different settings in your application.
The responsiveness of the user interface has been significantly improved when selecting timeline regions that have dense shader profiler information. The selected data is now processed in the background, allowing you to continue inspecting the trace until the tables fill in.
In the Aftermath GPU Crash Dump Viewer, shaders that were running at the time of the crash now show a full call stack, clarifying the exact context of shader execution at crash time. Likewise, the Ray Tracing Live State Viewer in GPU Trace also shows the full stack now, making it easier to find opportunities to reduce live state.
Nsight Graphics now offers to restore Windows system settings that are modified when running the shader debugger, in particular the TDR timeout delay. If you continue to use the system without resetting the TDR, a window will remind you upon each reboot and offer to set it back.
Finally, we’ve updated the documentation with a modern theme and re-organized the hierarchy to be easier to browse. Some features of the new theme include a dark mode / light mode toggle, and highlighting of search terms when clicking on a result.
Path Tracing Optimization in Indiana Jones™: Shader Execution Reordering and Live State Reductions
developer.nvidia.com/blog/path-tracing-optimization-in-indiana-jones-shader-execution-reordering-and-live-state-reductions
Download Nsight Graphics:
developer.nvidia.com/nsight-graphics
Get started with Nsight Tools Tutorials:
developer.nvidia.com/tools-tutorials
00:00 - Introduction
00:36 - Graphics Capture: Dynamic Shader Editing
01:11 - LSS Hair in Ray Tracing Inspector
01:31 - GPU Trace Workflow & Performance Improvements
02:06 - Full Shader Call Stacks in More UIs
02:34 - Shader Debugger: System Settings Restoration
02:51 - Documentation Refresh
03:06 - Outro
