topic Re: Parallel Inspector Gating Control in Software Archive

Parallel Inspector Gating Control

tweakoz — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 22:28:03 GMT

Hello List,

The Intel Parallel Inspector needs a gating control.

ie, I need to be able to specifystart log and end log commands via an API function call, or via a GUI.

This is required because waiting up to 300X the normal execution time is prohibitive.
I am sitting there waiting more than 10 minutes just for mygame to boot, then I have to navigate
menus and then wait 10 or minutes just to get into a level.

I am only interested in capturing full threading information for 1 to 10 frames of running gameplay.

hence the need for a triggering/gating mechanism.

I feel this feature would transform the product from 'unusable' to 'essential'.

thanks,

mtm
michael@tweakoz.com

Re: Parallel Inspector Gating Control

robert-reed — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 00:12:52 GMT

Quoting - tweakoz

The Intel Parallel Inspector needs a gating control.

ie, I need to be able to specifystart log and end log commands via an API function call, or via a GUI.

This is required because waiting up to 300X the normal execution time is prohibitive.
I am sitting there waiting more than 10 minutes just for mygame to boot, then I have to navigate
menus and then wait 10 or minutes just to get into a level.

I am only interested in capturing full threading information for 1 to 10 frames of running gameplay.

hence the need for a triggering/gating mechanism.

I feel this feature would transform the product from 'unusable' to 'essential'.

Yes, Intel Parallel Inspector can expand substantially the amount of time it takes for your application to run, and many the times I wished there was exactly the sort of control you suggest. But like the Intel Thread Checker product that came before it, Parallel Inspector is contrained by the nature of the analysis it needs to do.

Consider what might happen if you had such a "pause" button. Suppose I had a version that would skip all the checks until some point where I'm ready to start inspecting. I enable inspecting and immediatelythe inspectorhas a problem, as soon asthe test program writes something. Is it a race? Well, there's no way to tell because there's no history of activities at that memory location. The tool could start gathering data about memory activities at that point and might be very effective on some programs with the right structure, but lousy on others. These performance issues are something our developers are aware of and they are cooking up new ideas all the time; it's just a very hard problem.

Re: Parallel Inspector Gating Control

Peter_W_Intel — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 02:59:26 GMT

Intel Parallel Inspector hasNO control via API function calls to start/pause/resume inspecting, neither the way to use "pause"on GUI.Please see my post - http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/do-not-use-vtuneapi-in-intel-parallel-inspector-for-selective-code-checking/

Intel Parallel Amplifierhascontrols via API function calls to start/pause/resume profiling, either theways touse "pause/resume" on GUI. Please see my post - http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/use-vtuneapi-in-intel-parallel-amplifier-for-selective-code-profiling/

Regards, Peter