Direct3D 11 missing GetRasterStatus, how do I detect the vertical blank period?

Question

I'm updating an application in which measurement of the time of presentation of a stimulus on a screen requires the greatest amount of accuracy. It is currently written with DirectDraw, which got put out to pasture a long while ago, and there's a need to update our graphics library.

The way which we measure the presentation time utilizes detecting the end of the Vertical Blank period. Specifically I need to know with, the greatest possible accuracy, when whatever was flipped onto the primary surface (or presented in the swap chain) is actually being drawn by the screen. Detecting the scan line can increase the certainty of that measurement, but I would be able to work with only detecting when the vertical blank period ended immediately after the Flip or Present was called.

Direct 3D 9 has the IDirect3DDevice9::GetRasterStatus Method that returns a D3DRASTER_STATUS struct which includes a InVBlank boolean, that describes if the device is in a vertical blank, as well as the current scan line. DirectDraw has similar functions (IDirectDraw::GetVerticalBlankStatus, also IDirectDraw::GetScanLine which returns DDERR_VERTICALBLANKINPROGRESS during Vertical Blank can be used to detect the VB).

However I have not been able to find any similar function in Direct3D11. Does anyone know if this functionality was moved or removed between Direct3D9 and Direct3D11, and if the latter, why?

Answer 1

Sorry for the late reply, but I notice there is still no accepted answer so perhaps you never found one that worked. Nowadays on Windows, the DesktopWindowManager service (dwm.exe) coordinates everything and can't really be bypassed. Ever since Windows 8, this service can't be disabled.

So DWM is always going to control the frame rate, render queue management, and final composition for all of the various IDXGISurface(n) objects and IDXGIOutput(n) monitors and there isn't much use in tracking VSync for an offscreen render target, unless I'm missing something (no sarcasm intended). As for your question, I wasn't sure if your goal was to:

1. obtain extremely precise timing info, but just for diagnostic, profiling, or informational use, or
2. whether the app was then going to (attempt to) use those results to (attempt to) schedule its own present cycles.

If it's the latter, I believe you can effectively only do this if the D3D app is running in full-screen exclusive mode. That's the only case where the DWM—in the guise of DXGI–will truly trust a client to handle its own Present timing.

The (barely) good news here is that if your interest in VSync is informational only—which is to say that you fall into bullet category (1.) from above—then you can indeed get all the timing data you'd ever want, and at QueryPerformanceFrequency resolution, which is typically around 320 ns.¹

Here's how to get that high-res video timing info. But again, just to be clear, despite the apparent success in obtaining the information as shown below, any attempt to use these interesting results, for example, to condition some deterministic--and thus potentially useful--outcome on the readings you obtain will be destined to fail, that is, entirely thwarted by DWM intermediation:

DWM_TIMING_INFO

Specifies Desktop Window Manager (DWM) composition timing information. Used by the DwmGetCompositionTimingInfo function.

typedef struct _DWM_TIMING_INFO
{
    UINT32    cbSize;                 // size of this DWM_TIMING_INFO structure
    URATIO    rateRefresh;            // monitor refresh rate
    QPC_TIME  qpcRefreshPeriod;       // monitor refresh period
    URATIO    rateCompose;            // composition rate
    QPC_TIME  qpcVBlank;              // query performance counter value before the vertical blank
    CFRAMES   cRefresh;               // DWM refresh counter
    UINT      cDXRefresh;             // DirectX refresh counter
    QPC_TIME  qpcCompose;             // query performance counter value for a frame composition
    CFRAMES   cFrame;                 // frame number that was composed at qpcCompose
    UINT      cDXPresent;             // DirectX present number used to identify rendering frames
    CFRAMES   cRefreshFrame;          // refresh count of the frame that was composed at qpcCompose
    CFRAMES   cFrameSubmitted;        // DWM frame number that was last submitted
    UINT      cDXPresentSubmitted;    // DirectX present number that was last submitted
    CFRAMES   cFrameConfirmed;        // DWM frame number that was last confirmed as presented
    UINT      cDXPresentConfirmed;    // DirectX present number that was last confirmed as presented
    CFRAMES   cRefreshConfirmed;      // target refresh count of the last frame confirmed as completed by the GPU
    UINT      cDXRefreshConfirmed;    // DirectX refresh count when the frame was confirmed as presented
    CFRAMES   cFramesLate;            // number of frames the DWM presented late
    UINT      cFramesOutstanding;     // number of composition frames that have been issued but have not been confirmed as completed
    CFRAMES   cFrameDisplayed;        // last frame displayed
    QPC_TIME  qpcFrameDisplayed;      // QPC time of the composition pass when the frame was displayed
    CFRAMES   cRefreshFrameDisplayed; // vertical refresh count when the frame should have become visible
    CFRAMES   cFrameComplete;         // ID of the last frame marked as completed
    QPC_TIME  qpcFrameComplete;       // QPC time when the last frame was marked as completed
    CFRAMES   cFramePending;          // ID of the last frame marked as pending
    QPC_TIME  qpcFramePending;        // QPC time when the last frame was marked as pending
    CFRAMES   cFramesDisplayed;       // number of unique frames displayed
    CFRAMES   cFramesComplete;        // number of new completed frames that have been received
    CFRAMES   cFramesPending;         // number of new frames submitted to DirectX but not yet completed
    CFRAMES   cFramesAvailable;       // number of frames available but not displayed, used, or dropped
    CFRAMES   cFramesDropped;         // number of rendered frames that were never displayed because composition occurred too late
    CFRAMES   cFramesMissed;          // number of times an old frame was composed when a new frame should have been used but was not available
    CFRAMES   cRefreshNextDisplayed;  // frame count at which the next frame is scheduled to be displayed
    CFRAMES   cRefreshNextPresented;  // frame count at which the next DirectX present is scheduled to be displayed
    CFRAMES   cRefreshesDisplayed;    // total number of refreshes that have been displayed for the application since the DwmSetPresentParameters function was last called
    CFRAMES   cRefreshesPresented;    // total number of refreshes that have been presented by the application since DwmSetPresentParameters was last called
    CFRAMES   cRefreshStarted;        // refresh number when content for this window started to be displayed
    ULONGLONG cPixelsReceived;        // total number of pixels DirectX redirected to the DWM
    ULONGLONG cPixelsDrawn;           // number of pixels drawn
    CFRAMES   cBuffersEmpty;          // number of empty buffers in the flip chain
}
DWM_TIMING_INFO;

(Note: To horizontally compress the above source code for display on this website, assume the following abbreviations are prepended:)

typedef UNSIGNED_RATIO URATIO;
typedef DWM_FRAME_COUNT CFRAMES;

Now for apps running in windowed mode, you can certainly grab this detailed information as often as you like. If you only need it for passive profiling, then getting the data from DwmGetCompositionTimingInfo is the modern way to do it.

And speaking of modern, since the question hinted at modernizing, you'll want to consider using a IDXGISwapChain1 obtained from IDXGIFactory2::CreateSwapChainForComposition to enable the use of the new DirectComposition component.

DirectComposition enables rich and fluid transitions by achieving a high framerate, using graphics hardware, and operating independently of the UI thread. DirectComposition can accept bitmap content drawn by different rendering libraries, including Microsoft DirectX bitmaps, and bitmaps rendered to a window (HWND bitmaps). Also, DirectComposition supports a variety of transformations, such as 2D affine transforms and 3D perspective transforms, as well as basic effects such as clipping and opacity.

Anyway, it seems less likely that detailed timing information might usefully inform an app's runtime behavior; maybe it will help you predict your next VSync, but one does wonder what significance "keen awareness of the blanking period" might have for some particular DWM-subjugated offscreen swap chain.

Because your app's surface is just one of many that the DWM is juggling, the DWM is going to be doing all kinds of dynamic adaptation of its own, under an assumption of each client behaving consistently. Unpredictable adaptations are uncooperative in such a regime, and will likely just end up confounding both parties.

---

Notes:
1. The resolution of QPC is many orders of magnitude higher than that of the DateTime tick, despite the the latter's suggestive use of a 100 ns. unit denomination. Think of DateTime.Now.Ticks as a repackaging of the (millisecond-denoted) Environment.TickCount, but converted to 100-ns units. For the highest possible resolution, use static method Stopwatch.GetTimestamp() instead of DateTime.Now.Ticks.

Answer 2

Another alternative:

There's D3DKMTGetScanLine() which works with D3D9, D3D10, D3D11, D3D12, and even OpenGL.

It's actually a GDI32 function so you piggyback off the Window's existing graphics hAdaptor to poll the VBlank/Scanline -- no need to create a Direct3D frame buffer. That's why this API works fine with OpenGL, Mantle, and non-Direct3D renderers too, despite the D3D prefix of this API call.

It also tells you VBlank status & Raster scan line.

It's useful for beam-racing applications in supreme "latency-is-critical" applications. Some virtual reality renders use beam racing, when even a mere 20ms of lag can mean the difference between pleasant VR and dizzying/pukeworthy VR.

Beam racing is rendering on the fly, following the scanout of a display. In speciallized latency-critical applications, you can reduce latency from Direct3D Present() to pixels hitting your eyeballs, to absolute minimum (as little as 3ms).

To understand what beam racing is, https://www.wired.com/2009/03/racing-the-beam/ -- it was common back in the day when graphics chips had no frame buffers -- making beam racing necessary for improved graphics on Atari 2600, Nintendo, Commodore 64, etc...

For a more modern implementation of beam racing, see Lagless VSYNC ON Algorithm for Emulators.