Direct mode breaks graphics debugging?

Wanting to take a peek on why the framerate in the SDK samples was so low (37.5 in direct mode if i have aero enabled, solid 75 without) i fired up nvidia's nsight -> got unhappy and crashed. Ok .....tried the build in graphics diagnostics in visual studio also crashes. When I switch to extended mode both run just peachy, then again my frame-rate it peachy as well so no need to profile there...

Can anyone repro this? what's happening in the graphics stack when you enable direct mode?

I'm running nsight 4.0.0.14159