GL-Z, a tool to monitor Vulkan and OpenGL

glz-linux

With the growing demand for games in the Linux world, especially after more frequent Vulkan implementations, created a demand for tests, benchmarks and forms of analysis, to measure performance on platforms.

Nowadays there are various monitoring tools for Linux, however, it is less common to find one that groups several functionalities into one.

Either that it is on top of others or that it works exactly the same way in other operating systems for easy comparison, which is why the GL-Z is so interesting.

About GL-Z

GL-Z is an information monitoring utility for OpenGL and Vulkan which shows the main queries of these, as well as the extensions in the order in which they are exposed by the graphics driver.

An extension can have a particular color (for example GL_NV extensions are green and GL_AMD red) and an OpenGL version (essentially for GL_ARB extensions).

When talking about Vulkan, the API itself includes some options to display the FPS rate, among other things, in that regard.

Even Steam itself has an FPS counter, but the number of frames on the screen is just one of the factors that you may want to control, although for OpenGL there is the GLXOSD layout, the GL-Z becomes more interesting because in addition to monitoring the OpenGL it can also monitor the Vulkan in all platforms.

GL-Z is a cross-platform application and is available for Windows, Linux and OS X this application is based on GeeXLab.

Among its main characteristics we can highlight the following:

  • Multiplatform: it has versions for Windows 64 bits, Linux 64 bits, macOS, Raspberry Pi and Tinker Board
  • OpenGL essential information: general data, extensions and memory usage, if supported
  • Provides essential information on the Vulkan API: general data and extensions for each Vulkan compatible device
  • Shows CPU information and usage monitoring on Windows and Linux.
  • GPU information and monitoring (usage, temperature) on Windows and Linux.
  • The data can be exported in a simple text file.
  • Monitored CPU / GPU values ​​can be recorded in a csv file.

glz-raspberry-pi

The main way of working of the application consists of a window that allows the creation of several other smaller windows.

GL-Z works exactly the same way on any system, but there are variations, as the application can be resized to smaller windows to monitor specific things.

How to download and run GL-Z?

GL-Z it is a portable application so it is not necessary to install it in our system in any way.

In order to obtain it, it is enough that we go to your official websiteHe and in its download section we can obtain the correct version for the system we are using.

As mentioned, this application is cross-platform, so there is also a package for the Raspberry. The link to the official website is this.

After you have downloaded the latest stable version of the application, We must unzip the newly obtained package and after that we will have the folder with the application files.

To run the default options, just run the START_GL.sh file, but This does not monitor the CPU cycles, so to monitor these we will have to execute the START_GLZ_CPU_Monitoring.sh file.

The application has a low impact on system resources since in execution it only consumes 16 MB of RAM and practically not being present for the use of the processor and the video card.

You can use GL-Z while playing games and enable log capture through the "tools" menu.

If you want to see a monitor while playing, just right click on the edge of the window and ask it to stay "always on top".

All the data capture logs will be inside the program's own folder with the name "log".


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