The Commands pane displays the calls made by the application, grouped by frame and draw call or by user markers.

Viewing an OpenGL trace
Viewing a Vulkan trace

Operations

You can perform the following operations in this pane:

Operation Description
Show result Click on a command or group to update the other panes to reflect the state after the selected command / group.
Expand or collapse the call hierarchy Click the gray triangle to the left of a grouping or double-click the grouping to expand or collapse it.
Search Type a string in the search bar at the top of the pane, and then press Return (see image above). To find the next occurrence, make sure the bar is selected and press Return again.

Select the Regex box to use a regular expression search pattern. For example, glClear.* will match both commands glClear() and glClearColor(). You can also search for command parameter values such as buffer: 2, which is used in glBindBuffer().

Edit Right-click a command and select Edit. In the Edit dialog, change one or more values and click OK.
View state or memory information Click a command argument that refers to a state parameter, such as a texture ID. The State pane opens to provide additional information. Click a memory address or pointer to open the Memory pane.
Copy commands Select items in the pane and press Control+C (or Command+C) to copy commands with their argument values. You can paste this information into a text file.
Magnify thumbnail The thumbnail appears to the left of a call (see image below). Hover the cursor over the thumbnail to enlarge it.
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Debug Markers

Depending on your app, the Commands pane can contain a very long list of commands within one frame. For better navigation and readability, you can define debug markers that group calls together under a heading in the tree. This could include a grouping named Setup or Render World.

If debug markers are enabled, you need to click the Commands pane to reveal a link to this information.

OpenGL ES has the following APIs to group commands:

Extension / Version Push Pop
KHR_debug glPushDebugGroupKHR() glPopDebugGroupKHR()
EXT_debug_marker glPushGroupMarkerEXT() glPopGroupMarkerEXT()
OpenGL ES 3.2 glPushDebugGroup() glPopDebugGroup()

Vulkan has the following APIs to group commands:

Extension / Version Push Pop
VK_EXT_debug_marker vkCmdDebugMarkerBeginEXT() vkCmdDebugMarkerEndEXT()