About Sampling Views

In the VTune(TM) Performance Analyzer, sampling views display data collected during sampling collection. The sampling data helps identify system-wide software performance problems caused by processor events, such as Cache Misses and Mispredicted Branches.

The sampling views can help you identify hotspots or performance bottlenecks in the operating system modules, your application, and other software modules executing on your system. You can drill down to the source of the hotspot and determine how to modify the source code so that the application utilizes processor time and processor-specific features more efficiently. For example, you can drill down on a specific process, or processes, in the Process view to open the Thread view showing all threads active for the selected process or processes.

A high number of samples collected at a specific process, thread, or module can imply high processor utilization or potential performance bottlenecks.

After collecting sampling data using the VTune analyzer, you can view the data at the following levels of detail:

• Summary view (available for the clockticks event)

• Process view

• Thread view

• Module view

• Hotspot view

• Sampling Over Time view

• Source View

If you run the sampling Activity using the sampling configuration wizard, tThe system-wide Process view opens by default. It enables you to view all the processes running on your system when the data was collected. You can view sampling results in a Table or Horizontal Bar Chart format.

If you run the sampling Activity using the First Use wizard, the Summary view opens by default. To access the Module view, click the View All Modules link in the Summary view. To access the Process view, click the All Processes link.

See the Secrets of the Sampling View to get an idea what sampling view you should use to identify your performance problems.

note

• The path you follow to a view determines how it is filtered.

• See Sampling Toolbar for information on sampling view tools.

• By default, when you run an Activity configured with the sampling collector, the VTune analyzer displays sampling results in the process view. You can, however, change the default to be the module or thread view. See  Drilling down for details on how to move from one level of detail to the next in order to locate bottlenecks.