baldurk/renderdoc

What it does

RenderDoc is a stand-alone frame-capture graphics debugger for developers working with Vulkan, D3D11, D3D12, OpenGL, and OpenGL ES 2.0–3.2. It captures a single frame of a running program and lets you inspect the API calls, pipeline state, textures, shaders, and mesh data behind that frame. It runs on Windows, Linux, and Android; the 64-bit Windows build can also capture from 32-bit programs. Nintendo Switch support is distributed separately through the NintendoSDK for authorized developers.

The tool is intended for debugging your own programs. The project explicitly disallows discussion of capturing programs you did not create, such as commercial games or online maps; capturing your own projects built with third-party engines like Unreal or Unity is supported.

Getting started

On Windows, download and run the installer for your architecture (64-bit or 32-bit), or choose the portable zip from the builds page. Launch the RenderDoc UI, attach it to your own application or launch the application through RenderDoc, trigger a frame capture, then open the capture to inspect the pipeline and resources.

On Linux, only 64-bit x86 is supported. Use the precompiled binary tarball, install RenderDoc from your distribution if packaged, or build from source. New users should start with stable builds; nightly builds track the v1.x branch and may be less stable.

Once a capture is open, the documentation covers the available views and workflows: online HTML, the bundled renderdoc.chm, and video walkthroughs.

Constraints

• Capture targets must be programs you created or are authorized to debug.
• Supported APIs vary by platform; D3D11/D3D12 are Windows-only, OpenGL 3.2–4.6 Core is supported on Windows and Linux, and legacy OpenGL 1.0–2.0 Compat, D3D9/D3D10, and Metal are listed as unsupported.
• Linux support is limited to 64-bit x86.
• The project is MIT licensed; third-party library acknowledgements are in the license file.

HotRepo's take

RenderDoc is a mature project created in 2014 and now at roughly 11.3k stars and 1.9k forks. In the most recent recorded daily snapshot (2026-11-06, C++ list), it added 3 stars and ranked 15th on that C++ daily list. The single snapshot only supports the fact of that day's placement; with no continuous series, it does not establish a trend. The value here is the long-running, well-documented tooling rather than recent momentum: broad API and platform coverage paired with an open-source MIT codebase make it a standard reference for graphics debugging.