Debugging information with Vtune

[arthurbesse]

Hi all.

When analyzing some executable with Vtune, in collection log I see something like this

Resolving information for 'lib1.dll'

Resolving information for 'lib2.dll'

I realize that process of resolving debug information takes significant time. Actually I am not interested in detailed output with mapping to source files. What I am interested in are global metrics, such as 'elapsed time', 'instructions retired' etc.

Is there a way to disable debug information collection?

Thank you in advance!

[yuzhang3_intel]

To analyze the codes you are interested in, you can use ITT API to control the data collection.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/docs/vtune-profiler/user-guide/2024-2/collection-control-api.html

[arthurbesse]

Thank you for your response.

My question is a little bit different I believe. I need to analyze whole process from beginning to end, not some code region.
To be more precise, I want vtune to behave as if there is no debugging information available (eg in the case of windows, pdb files) even though debugging information is available. Is there any way to achieve this behavior?

[yuzhang3_intel]

So you want VTune to ignore resolving the information you don't care about, right? 

[arthurbesse]

Yes.

To make things clear.

Quote from documentation

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Intel® VTune™ Profiler provides accurate source analysis if your code is compiled with the debug information and debug information is written correctly in the binary file (for Linux targets) or debug information file/symbol file (for Windows targets).

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I do not need source analysis and I want vtune not to provide this information because it slows down vtune significantly. I want vtune to behave as if my code was not compiled with debug information, even though my code was compiled with debug information.

[Jeffrey_R_Intel1]

Please experiment with "-finalization-mode=deferred" or "-finalization-mode=none" to see if that provides the desired behavior.
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/docs/vtune-profiler/user-guide/2024-2/finalization.html
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/docs/vtune-profiler/user-guide/2024-2/finalization-mode.html

[yuzhang3_intel]

Simply, VTune profiling is divided into collection and finalization stages. Although the second stage requires more time, the information sampling is already finished, so the resolving time can't impact the metrics. Currently, VTune doesn't support customized resolving.