GPU programming is so cool! You need 600 lines of code to add 2 numbers. You don't have traditional stepping debugger, instead you have validation layers and renderdoc. GPUs don't have branch predictors and are heavily parallel, so you really don't want if conditions. It's basically like getting into programming all over again. My head hurts, but like in a good way. I'm learning!
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Latest GPU debuggers can do some stepping. NSight being one of them. developer.nvidia.com/blog/sh…

Shader Debugging Made Easy with NVIDIA Nsight Graphics | NVIDIA Technical Blog

Shaders are specialized programs that run on the GPU that manipulate rays, pixels, vertices, and textures to achieve unique visual effects. With shaders, you can add creative expression and realism...

developer.nvidia.com
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Replying to @OlexGameDev
Cries in AMD

Mar 26, 2026 · 9:20 PM UTC

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Replying to @valigo @OlexGameDev
Well, you can do offline shader debugging (with stepping) in RenderDoc. I think it's DirectX only, or in my case WebGPU on top of DirectX. Shader is in hlsl, tanslated from wgsl, though, but that's not that big of a deal.
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Replying to @valigo @OlexGameDev
If using DX12 or Vulkan, you can use PIX for windows to step through code. RenderDoc should also have support for stepping through code.
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Replying to @valigo @OlexGameDev
ROCgdb is just gdb but for AMD gpus.
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