Intel® VTune™ Profiler

User Guide

ID 766319
Date 3/22/2024
Public

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Document Table of Contents

Manage Timeline View

Explore filtering, sorting and grouping mechanisms available in the Timeline pane in Intel® VTune™ Profiler.

To manage the Timeline pane, do the following:

To Do This

Do This

Group the data by program units

Use the Timeline grouping menu to select a grouping level:

A grouping level depends on the analysis type. Selected grouping affects the metrics provided in the Timeline pane. If some of the metrics are not supported for the selected grouping, this data does not show up in the Timeline view and the legend is updated accordingly.

Sort the data

Right-click the list of threads/cores/CPUs (depending on the analysis type) and select the required type of sorting from the Sort By content menu option:

  • Row Start Time sorts the rows by the thread creation time.

  • Row Label sorts the rows alphabetically.

  • <Metric> sorts the rows by performance metric monitored for the selected viewpoint, for example, CPU Time, Hardware Event Count, and others.

  • Ascending sorts the program units in the ascending order by one of the categories selected above.

  • Descending sorts the program units in the descending order by one of the categories selected above.

Re-order the rows

Select the row you need, hold and drag it to the required position. Press SHIFT to select multiple adjacent rows. Press CTRL to select multiple disjointed rows.

Filter data

Select the required program unit(s), right-click and choose from the context menu to filter in or filter out the data in the view by the selected items. To go back to the default view, select the Remove All Filters option.

Zoom in and focus on a particular graph section

  1. Drag and drop to select the range of interest.

  2. Right-click and select Zoom In on Selection from the context menu.

To restore the timeline to the previous state, right-click and select Undo Previous Zoom. To restore the timeline to the entire time interval (for example, after multiple zooming operations), right-click and select Reset Zoom from the context menu or click the Reset Zoom button on the timeline toolbar.

Zoom in/Zoom out the timeline

Click the Zoom In/ Zoom Out buttons on the timeline toolbar.

Change the height of the row

Right-click and select the Change Band Height option from the Timeline context menu and select the required mode:

  • Super Tiny mode fits all available rows (corresponding to program units such as processes, threads, and so on) into the timeline area and display metric data in a gradient fill. This mode is especially useful for results with multiple processes/threads since it shows all the data in a compact way ("bird's-eye view") with no scroll bar. It helps observe large numbers that are typical for high-end parallel applications and easily recognize application phases and places of underutilization for further zooming/filtering.

    If there are more rows than pixels, then multiple rows can share a pixel, in which case the pixel shows the maximum value. If you hover over a chart object, the tooltip shows all of the rows assigned to a pixel separately. If you resize the window, the timeline view is re-drawn and pixels are re-shared.

    If there is data, the active ranges are colored: the more data associated with a pixel, the more intense color is used for drawing. Otherwise, the band is shown in a black background color.

    For hierarchical data, the Super Tiny mode shows timeline data for the last level of hierarchy aggregated by the upper levels. For example, for the Process/Thread grouping you see threads data aggregated by process. Hover over a chart element to view the full hierarchy listed in the tooltip.

    NOTE:

    The Super Tiny display mode is available only for the HPC Performance Characterization viewpoint.

  • Normal mode sets the normal row height (about 16-18px). This mode shows charts, time markers, row identification (threads), and transitions. Rows can be reordered.

  • Rich mode sets the maximum row height (35-50px). This mode shows charts, charts for nested tasks, time markers, row identification (threads), and transitions. Rows can be reordered and their height can be manually adjusted.

Change the measurement units on the time scale

Right-click, select the Show Time Scale As context menu option, and choose from the following values:

  • Elapsed Time (default)

  • OS Timestamp

  • CPU Timestamp

Open the source view

Double-click the required transition/wait. VTune Profiler opens the Source or, if symbol information is not available, Assembly pane and highlights the corresponding waiting/signaling call site.

Synchronize the selection with other panes

Select a thread/module of your interest. VTune Profiler automatically highlights the program units (for example, functions) corresponding to the selected item in the Bottom-up and Top-down Tree panes.