Intel VTune Amplifier XE 2013. Modules of interest.

[Alina_Y_]

Hello!

I'm a beginner in VTune. But I have some experience in AQTime 8. Now I'm using Intel VTune Amplifier XE 2013. In my opinion, it has many advantages over AQTime. There is a interesting question. In AQtime I can choose modules of my interest to profile them (before start the profiling, I mean). It's very useful, because I have to profile only one dll from the big project. Is there such a possibility in Intel VTune Amplifier XE 2013?

I have posted this question here (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/31201179/intel-vtune-amplifier-xe-2013-modules-of-interest), but haven't got an answer yet.

[David_A_Intel1]

Hi Alina Y.:

Short answer, no.  VTune Amplifier can limit data collection to a specific process and, optionally, any child processes, but it collects data in all modules of that process.  Then, you use the display options to limit data to the "module of interest".  You can either select a module from the filter bar at the bottom of the Bottom Up view or select the "Module / Function / Call stack" grouping in the same view.

[Peter_W_Intel]

In general speaking, Mr.Anderson is right that VTune Amplifier profile whole process, including all modules, you can display interest of modules in report. (for example, "amplxe-cl -R -r result-000 -group-by module")

Regarding that you may want to profile critical code area in specific module, you can insert VTune Amplifier's Resume/Resume API in your code to profile (usually you need to start data collection with "-start-paused"). 

[David_A_Intel1]

Generally speaking, Mr. Wang is right in that you can use the Pause/Resume APIs to limit data collection to a "region." ;)

I should say, "Good point, Peter!" :)

However, just realize that it will not limit profiling to a module - any code executed in the process between the __itt_resume() API and the __itt_pause() API will be sampled.

[Alina_Y_]

MrAnderson, Peter Wang,

thank you a lot for your comprehensive comments. Many nuances of the VTune profiling are clear for me now.

[K_R__Dilip]

What is missing from this discussion (and I have created a separate post about this) is the ability to profile plug-in like components that are just DLLs that end up running in the process space of third party applications that we have no control over. These third party applications may not even be built to be profiled (one example is Excel.exe. Many add-ins run under Excel but VTune can neither attach itself nor launch Excel.exe successfully.) In cases like this we only want to profile the DLL we are interested in.

Visual Studio performance analyzer allows this scenario. I am unable to use it for other reasons.