In the following tutorials, you’ll use Chaos Visual Debugger (CVD) to capture and play back recordings for targets on local or remote machines, including:
Game clients and servers
Packaged builds
Play-in-editor sessions
Data Channels
CVD records a considerable amount of data from several systems. The more complex a scene is, the larger the CVD file becomes — which can impact performance. To manage file size, you can opt-out of recording certain data by toggling the data channels.
Data channels control which simulation stages or data visualization flags that CVD records.
To toggle data channels, click Data Channels in the main toolbar and check the desired channels.
Recording in CVD requires access to the console, such as in the Test or Development build configurations. When using the Test configuration, the CVD outliner does not display objects’ debug names. For more information on build configurations, see Packaging Unreal Engine Projects.
Session Targets
CVD describes the application or editor that you intend to record (such as a game client, game server, packaged build, or a PIE session) as a target. With the exception of PIE sessions, you can record one or more targets at a time, referred to as single or multiple sources.
The Session Target dropdown menu provides target presets to choose from when preparing to record, but you can also specify a custom target. By default, this menu is set to Local Editor — meaning that if you intend to record a local PIE session, you can leave this as is.
| Target | Description | Source Amount |
|---|---|---|
Local Editor | Records a local PIE session. | Single |
All Remote | Records all instances that are not the Editor. | Multiple |
All Remote Servers | Records all game servers that are not the Editor. | Multiple |
All Remote Clients | Records all game clients that are not the Editor. | Multiple |
All | Records all available targets. | Multiple |
Custom Selection | Records a custom target or targets. | Single or Multiple |
Recording multiple targets is useful if you are already recording a game server and game client, and need to record an additional client.
Next Up
Recording to File
Record to file with Chaos Visual Debugger
Recording a Live Session
Record a live session with Chaos Visual Debugger
Playback in Chaos Visual Debugger
Play back recordings in Chaos Visual Debugger.