NVidia has released a new open beta of their Parallel Nsight plugin for Microsoft Visual Studio that enables debugging of GPU code at runtime. This new version adds several new features for working in DirectX11, as well as support for the new Fermi-based GTX470 and GTX480 cards.

You can get more information and register for the beta at the Nsight website. Full press release after the break.

NVIDIA Introduces Parallel Nsight Open Beta for Microsoft Visual Studio developers
Latest Beta Release Adds Support for New Range of GPUs from NVIDIA

Visual Studio Conference and Expo, April 12-14, Las Vegas, NV – NVIDIA is to release a new open beta of Parallel Nsight™ with several new features for Microsoft Visual Studio users who are taking advantage of graphics processing units (GPU) for general purpose programming.

Parallel Nsight is powerful plug-in that allows Microsoft Visual Studio programmers to develop for both GPUs and CPUs within a single development environment.

This new release adds support for the new features found in the latest GeForce and Tesla products based on the Fermi architecture hitting the market soon.

The key new features for the open beta, which have been added underneath the 3 key technologies of Parallel Nsight, include:

Nsight Debugger:

  • NVIDIA Fermi architecture support for debugging CUDA C source code.
  • Improved parallel debugging visualizations for DirectX 10 HLSL debugging.

Nsight Analyzer:

  • OpenCL 1.0 call trace visualization correlated to CPU+GPU events on the timeline.
  • Timeline visualization of DirectX 11 API calls.
  • CUDA Profiler support for Fermi hardware counters.

Nsight Graphics Inspector:

  • DirectX11 Frame Debugging.
  • DirectX11 Frame Profiling, with per-draw call bottleneck detection.
  • Pixel History fully supported for Tesla (coming soon for Fermi).

With these additions, Parallel Nsight makes programming the GPU, for both computing and graphics applications, easy and accessible within the comfortable workflow of Microsoft Visual Studio.

Parallel Nsight supports Windows 7 and Windows Vista operating systems and full integration within Microsoft Visual Studio (2008 SP1 standard edition or later). The beta 2 version of Parallel Nsight supporting DirectX 11 is scheduled to be available in less than a month, with the first full production release scheduled for June. Both standard and professional versions of NVIDIA Parallel Nsight will be available upon final release.

Where can I see this: Developers can register for the beta program in person at the NVIDIA booth at the Visual Studio Conference and Expo, April 12-14 in Las Vegas, NV or online at http://www.nvidia.com/nsight.

About NVIDIA

NVIDIA awakened the world to the power of computer graphics when it invented the GPU in 1999. Since then, it has consistently set new standards in visual computing with breathtaking, interactive graphics available on devices ranging from tablets and portable media players to notebooks and workstations. NVIDIA’s expertise in programmable GPUs has led to breakthroughs in parallel processing which make supercomputing inexpensive and widely accessible. The company holds more than 1,100 U.S. patents, including ones covering designs and insights which are fundamental to modern computing. For more information, see www.nvidia.com.