VisualStudio 2010 - step through shader code?

Question

Is it possible in a DirectX11 application in VisualStudio2010 while debugging to step through shadercode? Especially when using the reference device - so shadercode will be executed in software. then it should be actually possible to step through it with the debugger, no?

I saw some advanced tools from nvidia (parallel nsights) and amd (gpu perfstudio) but they look extremely complex.

I don't care about performance, I just try to find bugs in the shadercode.

Answer 1

Short answer: No, you need an extra tool.

With the June 2010 DirectX SDK you can use the PIX tool (without using the reference device) to step through the code. Easiest practive here is to take a one-frame snapshot of the complete DirectX calls, select a pixel and debug it. It's not exactly intuitiv, but once you know what to do it's just a few clicks.

Visual Studio integration will become reality with Visual Studio 11 and DirectX 11.1 as is explained here: https://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2011/11/08/10235150.aspx?Redirected=true