Rad Game Tools Launches Programmer-Driven 'Telemetry'

Rad Game Tools has announced the release of Telemetry, a new tool the company describes as a programmer-driven profiling system that visualizes execution flow for game developers. "Unlike profiling tools that hand you back a page of numbers to analyze, Telemetry shows, in a very visual and highly interactive display, exactly where performance hotspots are occurring, and what threads are contributing to those hotspots," explained Telemetry chief developer Brian Hook. The Kirkland, WA-based company said Telemetry utilizes a client/server architecture in which the game relays performance information to a server, which then processes that data. Telemetry's client, Visualizer, lets programmers more easily identify performance issues, Rad stated. The firm expects Telemetry to reveal performance problems that game makers otherwise wouldn't know exist. Currently, the tool is only available for Windows, but Rad said support for other platforms will be announced "soon." Rad is also behind the Bink video codec, the Miles Sound System for game audio, and the Granny 3D animation toolkit.