Performance and frame analysis - Metaphor ReFantazio - Vulkan Guide
When trying the new Atlus game Metaphor: Refantazio, it came to me that the performance on steam deck was sub-standard for the kind of graphics this game has. While it has a great art-style, the performance does not meet the techniques seen on it, as it seems to come from persona 5 engine which ran on a PS3. For this reason, i captured a few different scenes, and analyzed the result, to try to see what is the cause for such a performance.
My focus here is on the Steam Deck gpu in particular, and how the rendering techniques seen in this game work for it. The game focuses on PS5 and PC, and does not target Steam Deck in particular, but the Steam Deck provides a good proxy for a mid range/low end GPU, and it has very nice performance measuring tools we can use on it. The workflow explained here is usable for vkguide code too, and you can see how the techniques run on-device.
The analysis will be done with 2 main tools. First one is RenderDoc https://renderdoc.org , and the second one is Radeon GPU Profiler https://gpuopen.com/rgp/ . Renderdoc will let us replay the frame drawcall by drawcall, and check what exactly happens during the frame, while Radeon Profiler will give us the timings for the commands executed and information about them. By comparing the same capture on both programs, we can see what goes on and what specific draws are slow/fast on them.
