Methods and systems for in-place shader debugging and performance tuning

A computer-readable storage medium including instructions that, when executed by a processing unit, cause the processing unit to manage changes to shader code in a graphics system, by performing the steps of:

• receiving one or more changes to a source code version of a shader to produce a source code version of a modified shader;
• generating a copy of the source code version of the modified shader;
• transmitting the source code version of the modified shader to an application programming interface (API) for compiling;
• receiving a handle to a machine code version of the modified shader;
• and
• associating the handle to the machine code version of the modified shader with both:
• the copy of the source code version of the modified shader, and
• a copy of a handle to a machine code version of the shader.

A computing device configured for managing changes to shader code in a graphics system, the computing device comprising:

• a graphics application executing on a first processing unit and including a shader;
• an application programming interface (API) executing on the first processing unit;
• a second processing unit coupled to the first processing unit;
• and
• an interception shim executing on the first processing unit that is configured to:
• receive one or more changes to a source code version of a shader to produce a source code version of a modified shader,
• generate a copy of the source code version of the modified shader,
• transmit the source code version of the modified shader to the API for compiling,
• receive a handle to a machine code version of the modified shader, and
• associate the handle to the machine code version of the modified shader with both:
• the copy of the source code version of the modified shader,
• and a copy of a handle to a machine code version of the shader.