Profiling .NET Applications - Overview

Applies to AQTime 8.81, last modified on January 18, 2022

AQTime allows you to profile .NET applications that run .NET Framework 1.0 - 4.5. This topic describes the general procedure of profiling .NET applications. For more information on application profiling, see Profiling Applications With AQTime.

To profile a .NET applications, follow these steps:

  • Compile your .NET application with debug information (see Compiler Settings for .NET Applications).

  • Create an AQTime project and add your application to the list of profiled modules in the Setup panel. See Setting Up a Profiling Project.

  • (Optional) Specify parameters for your application, such as command-line parameters or a working directory. See Specifying Parameters for the Profiled Application.

  • Select the profiler that you want to use from the drop-down list on AQTime’s Standard toolbar.Profiler drop-down list in Visual Studio’s AQTime menu.Current Profiler submenu of RAD Studio’s AQTime menu.

  • Select Normal from the Profiling Mode drop-down list box displayed on AQTime’s Standard toolbar.Select Normal from the Profiling Mode drop-down list box displayed on Visual Studio’s AQTime toolbar.Click Normal on the AQTime Profiling Modes toolbar in RAD Studio.

  • Select Entire .NET Code or All Project Modules to instruct AQTime to profile the entire application or create areas to define specific classes and routines you want to profile.

  • (Optional) Set up triggers and actions to dynamically control the profiling process.

  • Click Run to launch your application and start profiling.

  • Select AQTime > Run from Visual Studio’s main menu to launch your application and start profiling.

  • Select AQTime > Run With Profiling from RAD Studio’s main menu to launch your application and start profiling.

  • Perform some operations in the application that you want to profile.

    Tip: When profiling the application’s memory usage, you can explicitly run garbage collection in the profiled application by clicking Force Garbage Collection.selecting AQTime > Force Garbage Collection from Visual Studio’s main menu.clicking the Force Garbage Collection button in RAD Studio. This will clean up the objects that are no longer used in your application. You can then capture profiling results from the application to see which objects survived the garbage collection for some reason and remained in memory. Note that the Force Garbage Collection button does not reside on any toolbar by default. However, you can add the button to any RAD Studio’s toolbar via the Toolbar Customization dialog. In this dialog, switch to the Commands page, select the Run.AQtime category in the Categories list, drag the Force Garbage Collection command from the Commands list and drop it on the needed toolbar. For more information, see the Allocation Profiler - Analyzing .NET Applications topic.
  • Close your application to finish profiling and get the results.

AQTime will display the profiling results in its panels.

Note: Profiling results do not include information on methods that were inlined. To profile such methods, you need to disable inlining. For more information, see Disabling Inlining for the Profiled .NET Application.

For instructions on how to profile specific types of .NET applications, refer to the following topics:

Some specifics of .NET application profiling are also described in Profiling .NET Applications - Specifics.

See Also

Profiling .NET Applications
Profiling .NET Applications - Specifics
Allocation Profiler - Analyzing .NET Applications
Profiling Applications With AQTime
Compiler Settings for .NET Applications

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