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Energy Consumption Profiling

10 posts · Feb 2013 – Apr 2016

What this trail covers

Visual Studio's Performance and Diagnostics hub centralizes profiling tools, offering a unified launch point for various application types and platforms. It supports combining multiple profiling tools for cross-correlation and provides detailed analysis for UI responsiveness, memory usage, CPU, and energy consumption. The hub integrates with F12 developer tools for cross-platform analysis and supports remote debugging. The Energy Consumption tool specifically helps estimate application energy consumption. This post introduces the new CPU Usage tool for analyzing CPU time spent in C++, C#/VB, and JavaScript code, offering detailed breakdowns of function-level CPU utilization and enabling performance optimization by identifying CPU-bound code paths. It replaces the CPU Sampling tool for Windows Store apps and provides a live CPU graph during collection.

All Microsoft trails
  1. How CPU Sampling WorksThis post explains the fundamental principles of CPU Sampling as implemented by the Visual Studio profiler. It details how sampling works by taking snapshots of the call stack at set intervals to estimate function execution time without significantly impacting program performance. The post illustrates this with a manual example and then shows how the Visual Studio CPU Usage Tool automates this process, achieving more accurate results. It also discusses the statistical confidence intervals for sample counts and the overhead associated with sampling.
  2. Profile Your CPU in the Debugger in Visual Studio 2015This post details the updates to the CPU Usage tool in Visual Studio 2015 Update 1, enabling full CPU profiling without stopping a debug session. It introduces the CPU Usage tab within the Diagnostic Tools window, allowing users to toggle profiling on/off, view CPU utilization graphs, and examine a call tree breakdown of CPU usage in a break state. The post explains the data collection method (sampling), the overhead introduced by debugging, and suggests running in Release Mode for more accurate profiles. It also notes project compatibility limitations.
  3. Performance and Diagnostic Tools in Visual Studio 2015This post details the improvements to performance profiling and diagnostic tools in Visual Studio 2015. Key additions include PerfTips for real-time performance feedback during debugging, integration of IntelliTrace into the Diagnostic Tools window, and new tools like Network Usage and Application Timeline. It also highlights expanded platform support (Windows 7, Desktop, UWP, Azure Web Apps) and menu consolidation for easier access to diagnostic tools. The ability to profile production Azure Web Apps is also mentioned.
  4. PerfTips: Performance Information at-a-glance while Debugging with Visual StudioIntroduced PerfTips in Visual Studio 2015 for C#/VB, and C++ developers on all Windows platforms. PerfTips display elapsed time for code sections between breakpoints or steps, offering a quick way to identify performance bottlenecks without separate profiling tools. Clicking a PerfTip brings up the Diagnostic Tools window for historical data and correlation with CPU/Memory usage.
  5. View Source in the CPU Usage toolIntroduced the ability to navigate from a function in the CPU Usage tool's call tree to the source code where that function was defined, supporting C#/VB, C++, and JavaScript. This feature is disabled if symbol files (PDBs) are missing, source files are unavailable, or PDBs lack line-level information (e.g., for NGen modules or framework code from public symbol servers).
  7. Performance Profiling on Windows Phone 8.1 with Visual StudioThis post details the process of performance profiling Windows Phone 8.1 XAML and JavaScript apps using Visual Studio's Performance and Diagnostics hub. It covers creating a sample app, configuring profiling settings (Target, Mode, Architecture) for a physical device, selecting tools like CPU Usage and XAML UI Responsiveness, and interpreting the resulting performance reports. It also notes that Silverlight Phone apps require the use of separate, older profiling tools.
  8. New CPU Usage tool in the Performance and Diagnostics hub in Visual Studio 2013Introduces the new CPU Usage tool within the Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 Performance and Diagnostics hub. This tool provides low-overhead statistical sampling to measure CPU time spent executing C++, C#/VB, and JavaScript code. It offers detailed reports with 'Total CPU' and 'Self CPU' metrics (both percentage and milliseconds) to identify performance bottlenecks. The post demonstrates its use with a sample application, showing how to analyze CPU-intensive functions like 'BruteForceNextPrime' and how to iterate on optimizations using improved algorithms and parallelization, measuring the impact on both elapsed time and CPU time.
  9. Combining Tools in the Performance and Diagnostics Hub in Visual Studio 2013This post details the ability to combine multiple tools within the Visual Studio 2013 Performance and Diagnostics hub, specifically for Windows Store apps. It highlights the integration of the HTML UI Responsiveness, XAML UI Responsiveness, Energy Consumption, and CPU Usage tools. The post explains how the combined reports use a common timeline to correlate data across tools, enabling faster diagnosis of UI responsiveness issues linked to CPU activity and energy consumption issues caused by CPU load. It also mentions the reduction of overhead through data sharing between tools.
  10. Performance and Diagnostics Hub in Visual Studio 2013This post introduces the Performance and Diagnostics hub in Visual Studio 2013 as a unified entry point for profiling tools, replacing disparate menu options. It highlights new tools like XAML UI Responsiveness and Energy Consumption, and improved tools like CPU Usage and Memory Usage. The hub dynamically displays relevant tools based on the selected profiling target (Startup Project, Running App, Installed App, IE on Windows Phone, Executable, ASP.NET). It also details the integration with F12 developer tools for exporting data.
  11. Energy Consumption tool in Visual Studio 2013Introduces the Energy Consumption tool within the Visual Studio 2013 Performance and Diagnostics hub for Windows 8.1 store apps. Details the motivation for energy profiling on low-powered devices, explains how the tool estimates energy consumption using a software power model, and provides a step-by-step guide on using the tool and interpreting its report, including sections on Zoom, Ruler, Power Usage (Display, CPU, Networking), Resources (on/off state), and Energy Consumption Summary.
  12. How to profile a XAML Windows Store AppThis post details how to use the Visual Studio CPU profiler to identify performance bottlenecks in XAML Windows Store Apps. It explains CPU sampling, collecting data, analyzing the summary page (CPU chart, hot path, functions doing the most work), and the function details view. It provides a concrete example of optimizing a game by reusing storyboard objects and storing properties, leading to smoother animation. It also touches on analyzing external DLLs like display drivers and the importance of symbol loading.