CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c++visual-studio-2015directx-12
Thomas Bates
Thomas Bates

Reputation: 217

Why does my background flicker through my meshes in DirectX 12 Release build?

I have been developing this game in C++ in Visual Studio using DirectX 12. I used the Debug build configuration during development and the graphics were smooth as butter.

When I was preparing to publish the game on the Windows Store so I could share it with friends as play testers, I switched to Release build configuration. As soon as I did that I started getting this flicker of the back-ground color coming through my wall meshes.

Here is a short video that shows the flicker. Here is a longer video that I made before switching to Release build configuration that shows there is no flicker.

I am new to DirectX 12. This project was my teacher. I studied Microsoft's Direct3D 12 Graphics, and I studied the DirectX 12 templates in Visual Studio. I felt quite pleased that I was able to master DirectX 12 well enough to produce this game as well as I did. Then the Release thing, and the flicker thing, and I am at a loss.

Is this likely to be a shader issue? or a command queue issue? or a texture issue? or something else?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 662

Answers (1)

Chuck Walbourn
Chuck Walbourn

Reputation: 41127

DirectX 12 is an API designed for graphics experts and provides a great deal of application control compared to say Direct3D 11. The cost of that control is that you the application developer are responsible for getting everything right, making sure it works across a broad range of hardware, and robustly handling stress scenarios and error cases all yourself.

There are numerous ways you can get 'blinking' effects in DirectX 12. A common one is failure to keep your graphics memory with constants, IBs, VBs, etc. unchanged between the time you call Draw and the time the actual draw completes on the GPU which often happens a few frames later. This synchronization is a key challenge of using the API properly. For an example solution, see GraphicsMemory in DirectX Tool Kit for DirectX 12.

If you are new to DirectX development, I strongly advise starting with DirectX 11. It's basically the same functionality, but takes care of buffer renaming, resource barriers, fences, VRAM overcommit, etc.

Upvotes: 3

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