Setting Up Unreal Insights
When building Unreal Insights, you have multiple options available:
Launch Unreal Insights from the Explorer: Check if you already have a prebuilt copy of Unreal Insights with your engine by navigating to
Engine\Binaries\Win64\UnrealInsights.exe
Build from Visual Studio: You can build Unreal Insights from your Program's directory in your Solution Explorer.
From the Command Prompt: Navigate to Start > Command Prompt,then build Unreal Insights from your command directory.
cd C:\MyEngineInstallLocation\ Engine\Build\BatchFiles\RunUBT.bat UnrealInsights Win64 DevelopmentFrom the Editor: Start Unreal Insights from the Unreal Editor by navigating to Tools > Unreal Insights > Run Unreal Insights. Insights will attempt to compile automatically.
When running a Trace to profile your project data, you have multiple workflow options available depending on your Unreal Engine build and operating system.
Default Tracing Workflow (Win64, Binary Launcher)
1. Run Unreal Insights:
Navigate to your Engine\Binaries\Win64 folder and double-click UnrealInsights.exe.
2. Insights Session Browser:
When you launch the Unreal Insights Session Browser, you will notice that there are currently no live sessions available.
3. Run Your Game Project:
Launch the Command Prompt from your operating system and run the Lyra Game Sample.
cd C:\MyEngineInstallLocation\
Samples\Games\Lyra\Binaries\Win64\LyraGame.exeIf you have downloaded a sample of Lyra from the Epic Games Launcher, you can run Lyra from the default path Samples\Games\Lyra\Lyra.uproject.
4. Live Insights Session Browser:
Navigate back to the Unreal Insights Session Browser and observe that a new session has appeared with the "LIVE" status, indicating it is currently recording.
5. Check Your Trace Status:
In Lyra, press the tilde (`) twice to open the console, then type in the command
Trace.Status.
The channels Gpu, Bookmark, Frame, Cpu, and Log are enabled by default.
If Unreal Insights is already running before starting your project, then Unreal Insights will connect to the local trace server automatically and the default trace channels will be enabled.
6. Open Your Trace Session:
Navigate back to the Unreal Insights Session Browser, then double-click your .utrace file to open it for analysis in a new Unreal Timing Insights window.
To open a Trace file, you can drag and drop your .utrace file from the explorer onto the Unreal Insights Session Browser. Alternatively, you can open a .utrace file from a specific folder by clicking the Arrow button next to Open Trace, and selecting Open File from the drop-down menu.
Opening a trace launches a new instance of Unreal Insights. Timing Insights is the default component opened and provides you the capability to interact with a trace session to see how much time your project spends on various tasks.
Refer to the Timing Insights documentation for more information on how to view your data for analysis.
Advanced Controls of Tracing
Unreal Insights provides several Trace commands for you to control how your data is profiled. You may want to have visibility on specific trace channels like CPU or GPU profiling data, or to disable tracing a channel. Refer to the Trace documentation for additional information on Trace commands.
Late Connect
There may be instances where you forget to run the UnrealInsights.exe before launching your project, or perhaps you have discovered a situation you want to record without initially tracing from the beginning. You can Late Connect to Unreal Insights by following the steps below.
Before continuing, check the Unreal Insights Session Browser to ensure a live session is not already running. You can stop the connection by entering the console command:
Trace.Stop Build, Cook, or Run your project as you normally would.
Open Unreal Insights.
Click Connection to open the Connection tab. Confirm your desired connection settings, then click Connect.
After a successful connection, click the Trace Store tab. A new LIVE session will appear in the Session list.
