Setting General Performance Session Options

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You can set the collection method and profiling data naming conventions for a Visual Studio Profiling Tools performance session on the General page of the properties dialog box for the performance session. To open this dialog box from Performance Explorer, right-click the performance session, and then click Properties.

Choosing Data Collection Methods

You set the base collection method by selecting one of the options under Profiling collection. The options are described following in the following table:

Sampling. The sampling method collects profiling information at regular intervals. This method is useful for finding processor utilization issues and is the suggested method for starting most performance investigations.

Instrumentation. The instrumentation method injects into a copy of a module profiling code that records each entry, exit, and function call of the functions in the module during a profiling run. This method is useful for gathering detailed timing information about a section of your code and for understanding the impact of input and output operations on application performance.

Concurrency. The concurrency method collects data for each event that blocks execution of your code, such as when a thread waits for locked access to an application resource to be freed. This method is useful for analyzing multi-threaded applications.

You can collect .NET memory data by using the sampling or instrumentation methods. You select the type of data under .NET memory profiling.

Collect .NET object allocation information. By default, data includes the number and size of allocated objects. Select or clear this check box to enable or disable .NET memory data collection.

Also collect .NET object lifetime information. Select this check box to include data about the garbage collection generations that were used to reclaim the memory objects.

By default, the Data Collection Control window appears when you start to profile an application. In this window, you can pause and resume profiling, and you can insert profiling marks into the data file. Clear the Launch data collection control check box to hide this window. For more information, see Data Collection Control Window.

Setting Profiling Data File Options

Report. By default, the profiling data (.vsp) file is given the name of the profiled application and is located in the solution or project folder. A date string is also appended to the name, and an incremented number is added to data files that otherwise would have duplicate names. You can change these options under Report.