Introduction
In general, System Analyzer provides real-time platform & app analysis capability*. With this utility, developers can easily check the real-time changes on the performance metrics they care (e.g. CPU/GPU loading, media engines usage and power metrics etc.) while interacting with their target test app.
Take the first look about System Analyzer below. Metrics names listed in left panel can be dragged-and-dropped into right view panels for real-time monitoring.
*For the further advanced topics, System Analyzer is part of GPA (Graphics Performance Analyzer) which focuses more on graphics app optimization usage, mainly on Windows DirectX app and Android OpenGL ES app. Check the GPA product page to get the quick overview of GPA.
System Analyzer can be ran on Windows/Linux/Mac host to analyze Android and Windows applications.
Host(Developer machine)\Target | Android | Windows |
Windows | Remote mode | Local mode |
Linux | Remote mode | N/A |
Mac | Remote mode | N/A |
* Remote mode – requires ADB connection.
* Local mode – System Analyzer and test app runs on the same machine.
The next section gives a quick start about how local mode works. Before that, System Analyzer is contained in professional and ultimate editions of Intel® System Studio 2015 and also in Intel® INDE. You can download these binaries via registering the Intel System Studio products or downloading free version from INDE.
A quick start for local mode (profile a window application)
After installed GPA System Analyzer through Intel System Studio Professional or Ultimate editions, you can perform the following steps to see how System Analyzer works to profile a windows application.
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A usage case: is your application GPU-bound?
If your application is CPU-bound, that could say CPU is the critical resource to limit your application performance, in other words, you should be able to gain better performance after simply adopting higher working CPU frequency processor (or make CPU run faster). Knowing which resource bounds the program’s performance is a good direction to show you how to fine-tune your codes; optimize the codes path consuming most CPU computation resource if your program is CPU-bound type. It’s the same concept for GPU-bound program.
System Analyzer simply provides a switch to test if your program is GPU-bound or not. (To be more specific, 3D-Rendering-engine-bound or not) Make sure you successfully perform a quick start above. By clicking “Null Hardware” option, you could assume to have an infinite fast 3D hardware engine. Then you shall expect the maximum best performance measurement index (like highest FPS) shows in right panel view if the test program is 3D-Rendering-engine-bound. There are many test options (STATE OVERRIDES) to help isolate which rendering state causing performance bottle neck. Through these tests, you should be able to find the direction or focus points to improve the graphics program. Check the help page for more information on these state overrides options. |
Extension Reading
Intel System Studio includes three components of GPA; they are System Analyzer, Platform Analyzer and Frame Analyzer. System Analyzer is also the centrial interface to record the logs what Platform Analyzer and Frame Analyzer used for offline analysis.
| GPA Analyzers Name | Functionalities |
| System Analyzer | Provide real-time system & app analysis. Central interface to record logs for other GPA analyzers. More information. |
| Platform Analyzer | Provide GPU engines and threads activities interactions analysis. Present the captured log by showing all graphics hardware engines workloads (including decoding, video processing, rendering and computing) and threads activities in a timeline view. More information. |
| Frame Analyzer | Provide offline single frame rendering analysis. Reconstruct the frame by replaying DirectX/OpenGL APIs logged by System Analyzer. More information. More information |