Sorely disappointed (followed by bug list)

[eric_preisz]

I have been teaching v-tune in my optimization class for the past year and a half. Last month, when we downloaded the new version, might be the biggest step backwards of an interface I have ever seen. Instead of just being negative, I will attempt to make the situation better by reporting the bugs I am finding. Good luck. I hope to not have to jump to code analyst. I am going to see if my new licenses (we buy30 a month) will work with my old installers. (they don't by the way). All bug except one were on HP9420 and NX9600 with ATI cards.

-Sampling hotspots summary by process - the HTML links do not work.

-Can't force chart view to be default. No matter what option I set, it seems to want to go to summary and then table view.

-Quick performance analysis - seems to crash intermitently (sorry, no details here)

-Unhandled exception while closing call graph. referenced memory at 0x00000004

-Canvas drawing not refreshing when losing focus. Seems to be related to clicking on the center of the control.

-Unable to create dx9 device in call graph (mac book pro running vista)

-Unhandled exception (when running sampling) sorry, no details.

-Intelppm.sys now shows in the bar chart as pid_0x0. -not really a bug I guess.

-hard lock-up -just happend while running - sorry no details

-blue screen -just happened while running - sorry no details

[eric_preisz]

-had a very strange occurance with two students today. Both of their versions of visual studio 2005 lost many of their keys. Could be related to v-tune install. Never had this happen before. Removed integrated support and visual studio still acted funny ie. no backspace...ctrl key...alt key. Reset visual studio hot key mappings and solved the problem. I was told that the integration feature was not prompted like in the last installer. I prefer to work non-integrated due to the increased start-up time of visual studio.

[David_A_Intel1]

Eric:

I'm sorry that the updated UI doesn't meet your expectations. All changes were made in an effort to improve usability.

Your issue with the Sampling Summary is due to the way this view is automatically selected when displaying only the Clockticks event. If you collect Clockticks and Instructions Retired (the default for the Sampling Wizard) and double-click on the Clockticks node in the Tuning Browser, you will see the Sampling Summary. However, if you double-click the Run node or the Results node, you will get either the chart or the table, depending on the settings in Options.

As far as the rest, sorry but no details == no suggestions. Please submit bug reports to Intel Premier Support for investigation by our technical support team.

One suggestion: stick with the Sampling and Call Graph wizards. These are the pure collection methods and are usually more reliable.

BTW, I don't know if we are even supporting Microsoft* Windows Vista* on an Apple* Mac Book Pro*. Are you running on top of an emulator? Which one?

[eric_preisz]

Thanks for the reply.

I will give your suggestions a try and see how they work out. I'm not feeling so overwhelmed now that's it's been a couple days since my v-tune lab that didn't go so well. I'm hopeful that with some more instruction, next month, we can adapt to the changes.

As for my last post, I apologize for being a bit overly harsh. V-Tune has been a great, and very important tool for me the past years.

As for the bugs w/ no details. Yea no doubt. I understand that giving you a bug report without the ability to reproduce only does so much. The one detail that does cover all of those bugs is that they seemed to happen during no particular event. More like random crashes. Allthough it doesn't help you directly, I think the takeaway is one on stability.

As for the the Mac Book Pro....it's almost a joke in my mind. I'm not sure what my student was running exactly. I give him a hard time for his "strange" looking PC.

[eric_preisz]

I would just like to note that the latest version I downloaded is running much better than the month before. The qpa still seems a bit odd and not as "quick" as creating a new project.

I am excited to learn how to use all the new capabilities that the tool appears to have when running on my duo core. The learning curve on sampling appears to be pretty high right now for my students.

Thanks,

Eric

[David_A_Intel1]

FYI: there is some good info on Intel Core2 Duo sampling events and how to use them here.