Intel® VTune™

Profiler

2022.3.0

Intel® VTune™

Profiler

2022.2.0

Intel® VTune™

Profiler

2022.1.0

Hardware Support
Support for First Generation of Intel® Arc™ High-performance Discrete GPUs
This release of
Intel® VTune™
Profiler
supports the first generation of Intel® Arc™ high-performance discrete GPUs code named Alchemist, and previously known as DG2. The support includes:
Explicit support for DPC++, DirectX, Intel® Media SDK, OpenCL™, and OpenMP offload software technologies.
Support for multi-GPU systems. You can now profile all Intel GPU devices, including integrated and discrete GPUs.
Support for GPU Offload and GPU Hotspots analyses, including source level in-kernel profiling.
Families of Intel® X
e
graphics products starting with Intel® Arc™ Alchemist (formerly DG2) and newer generations feature GPU architecture terminology that shifts from legacy terms. For more information on the terminology changes and to understand their mapping with legacy content, see GPU Architecture Terminology for Intel® X
e
Graphics.
Input and Output Analysis
Intel® VT-d Observability
Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (Intel® VT-d) observability is introduced in the Input and Output analysis for server platforms based on 3rd Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors (code named Ice Lake), the Intel Atom® P5900 Processor Family (code named Snow Ridge), and newer. New performance metrics reveal efficiency of hardware-driven DMA addresses remapping and penalties for sub-optimal Intel VT-d utilization.
Managed Code Targets
.NET 6 Support
This release introduces support for analyzing .NET 6 targets using User-Mode Sampling. You can analyze .NET 6 workloads in Launch Application and Attach to Process modes on both Windows* and Linux* hosts.
Application Performance Snapshot
Histograms in Metric Tooltips
The metric tooltips in Application Performance Snapshot HTML reports were enhanced with histograms that clearly visualize the distribution of metric values observed during analysis.
Operating System Support
New Host Operating Systems
This release introduces support for these OS hosts:
Microsoft Windows* 11
Ubuntu* 21.10

Intel® VTune™

Profiler

2022.0.0

Analyses
Algorithm Group
Flame Graph View in Hotspots Analysis
This version of
VTune Profiler
introduces support for
Flame Graphs
in the
Hotspots
analysis type. The Hotspots by CPU Utilization viewpoint has been enhanced with a Flame Graph window that displays a graphical view of hot code paths. Use flame graphs to analyze the time spent on each function and its callee functions.
Input and Output
Platform Diagram
This release introduces the
Platform Diagram
, a new starting point for the Input and Output analysis. It reveals system topology and high-level utilization metrics for hardware resources including PCIe devices, Intel® Ultra Path Interconnect, and memory. It enables you to examine the utilization of your hardware at a glance.
This feature is enabled for 1st and 2nd Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors in up to four-socket configurations, excluding the Intel® Xeon® Platinum 9200 series processors code named Cascade Lake AP. This feature is also supported on Intel Atom® Processors P Series code named Snow Ridge.
Intel® Data Direct I/O Technology
Intel® Data Direct I/O (Intel DDIO) utilization efficiency metrics are extended with average Inbound PCIe read/write latency and core/IO contention indicator.
Linux Perf* Capabilities
It is now possible to perform Linux perf-based data collection without root access on 1st and 2nd Generation Intel Xeon® Scalable Processors on Linux kernel versions 5.10 and newer.
Platform Analyses
VTune
Profiler
- Platform Profiler as Analysis Type
VTune
Profiler
– Platform Profiler has been completely integrated into
VTune
Profiler
as an analysis type. Platform Profiler is now fully available as an analysis from the GUI or command line of
VTune
Profiler
. For more information, see Platform Profiler Analysis.
CPU Throttling Data in System Overview Analysis
The System Overview analysis now displays information about factors that can cause the CPU to throttle. Use this information to examine if your system is overheated or consumes significant power, both of which could result in frequency drops that affect system performance.
Microarchitecture Analyses
Platform Diagram in Memory Usage View
This release introduces the
Platform diagram
in the Memory Usage viewpoint of the Memory Access analysis type. Use this diagram to understand:
System topology
Utilization metrics for DRAM
Intel® UPI links
Physical cores
The platform diagram is available for:
All client platforms
Server platforms based on Intel® microarchitecture code name Skylake, with up to four sockets.
Analysis Targets
.NET
.NET 5 Workloads
This release introduces support for running the Hotspots analysis on .NET 5 targets in Launch Application mode when using hardware event-based sampling.
Extended Support for .NET 5 Workloads
You can now analyze .NET 5 workloads in the
Attach to Process
mode when you use Hardware Event-Based Sampling.
FreeBSD* OS
Input and Output Analysis on FreeBSD
You can now run the Input and Output analysis on remote FreeBSD targets. Analysis scope is limited to platform-level metrics.
SPDK on FreeBSD
On FreeBSD OS, The Input and Output analysis now supports Storage Performance Development Kit (SPDK) analysis. You can now get SPDK-specific performance data on FreeBSD OS.
Code Annotation
The Instrumentation and Tracing Technology API (ITT API) is now fully supported on FreeBSD OS. The appropriate header and library files are provided as part of the FreeBSD target package. You can use ITT API to annotate your code and collect arbitrary statistics with little to no overhead.
Support for Unified Shared Memory Workloads
Starting with the 2021.8 release, you can profile OpenCL, SYCL, and DPC++ applications that use Unified Shared Memory (USM) workloads. For OpenCL applications, this release also supports explicit data transfer of the buffer as Unified Shared Memory.

GPU Accelerators
Source-level analysis for DPC++ and OpenMP applications running on GPU over Level Zero
The following modes in GPU Compute/Media Hotspots analysis are now available when profiling Level Zero applications:
Dynamic Instruction Count
Basic Block Latency
Memory Latency
Support also includes full-scale analysis of the kernel source per code line, including Source/Assembly mapping.
Advanced Data Transfer Information in GPU Offload Analysis
The following additions to the Graphics window clarify better the data transfer between CPU host and GPU device when you run GPU profiling analyses:
Allocation time information displays as part of total time by device operation.
Data Transferred table has been renamed as Transfer Size table. Columns under Transfer Size feature new names for data transferred between host and device.
Highlights and tool tips for workloads with sub-optimal offload schemes direct your attention to improve offload schema where necessary.
Improved Tooltips for Occupancy Metrics in GPU Analysis
The GPU Compute/Media Hotspots Analysis has been enhanced to detect factors that limit peak achievable occupancy for the hottest computing tasks that make the EU array idle when waiting for the scheduler. Improved tooltips for occupancy metrics now provide information about peak occupancy and bounding reasons for existing computing task launch configuration.
GPU Analysis Coverage for Self-Check
Coverage of checks by the self-check functionality in VTune Profiler now includes GPU analyses as well. Run vtune-self-checker.sh script on Windows and Linux systems to check for the GPU Compute/Media Hotspots Analysis in source analysis and characterization modes when you run DPC++ applications on an Intel GPU. You must install the Intel® oneAPI Base Toolkit for this purpose.
Occupancy Report in GPU Hotspots Analysis
The GPU Compute/Media Hotspots analysis has been enhanced to display occupancy information in the
Summary
section. Use this data to understand the architectural limitations of the GPU that affect occupancy.
CPU Context for GPU Execution in GPU Offload Analysis
The GPU Offload analysis now presents a richer set of information about execution on the GPU by including context from the CPU. This includes stack information on:
Execution
Data transfer from host to device
Data transfer from device to host
The viewpoint for the GPU Offload Analysis now includes the Call Stack pane with a new grouping by
GPU Computing Task/Host Call Stack
. Navigate through transfer data contained in these panes to identify inefficient code paths in your application.
Analysis of Multiple GPUs
When you have multiple GPUs connected to your system, you can now analyze all of the GPUs collectively with the GPU Offload and GPU Compute/Media Hotspots analyses. Previously, you could analyze a single GPU at a time after
VTune Profiler
identified all the GPUs connected to the system. When you run these analyses on all connected GPUs, see analysis information about each GPU in the
Summary
window. Full compute set in
Characterization
mode is not available in multi-adapter and multi-tile analysis.
Hottest CPU Tasks in GPU Offload Analysis
The
Summary
view in the GPU Offload analysis now includes the
Hottest Host Tasks
table, which displays the most active tasks running on the CPU. Use this table to examine the overhead on the host. Click on a performance-critical task to see more information in the Graphics window, where results are grouped by host Task Type.
Support for Affinity Mask
If you use the
ZE_AFFINITY_MASK
variable to bind your workload to a single tile,
VTune Profiler
can then attribute kernels to the correct tile and also display relevant metrics per kernel.
Host-GPU Bandwidth Information in GPU Offload Analysis
Previously, you checked the
Analyze memory bandwidth
option in the GPU Offload analysis to see data required for this computation. Starting with this release of
VTune Profiler
, you can use the
Analyze host-GPU bandwidth
option instead. Depending on your hardware configuration, this selection displays DRAM bandwidth, PCIe bandwidth, or both sets of data on the timeline.
PCIe Bandwidth Information in Custom and Command Line Runs of GPU Offload Analysis
Use new options to collect information about PCIe bandwidth (between the host and GPU sides) when you run custom and command line runs of the GPU Offload analysis:
Use the
collect-host-gpu-pci-bandwidth
switch for both custom and command line runs.
In the UI, check the
Analyze host-GPU PCIe bandwidth
option for custom analysis.
Improvements to Peak Occupancy Metric
The
GPU Peak Occupancy
metric for a computing task now flags the factors that limit peak occupancy in the order of priority. Start tuning your application by addressing the most restricting factor.
VTune Profiler
customizes recommendations for potential improvements based on the launch parameters of the compute kernel (work size, SLM and barriers usage).
Enhancements to GPU Offload Summary
The Summary window of the GPU Offload analysis contains these enhancements for an improved user experience:
Locate hotspots in your function when the GPU is not busy. See the new
Top hotspots when GPU was idle
table in the
GPU Time, % of Elapsed Time
(formerly
GPU Utilization
) section.
The
Hottest Computing Functions
section now includes occupancy information.
Data Collection of CPU Host Stacks
When you collect information about host stacks in the GPU Offload and GPU Compute/Media Hotspots analyses, you can now filter the data by selecting a call stack mode from the filter bar.
Support to Trace DirectX* API on CPU Host
This release of
VTune Profiler
introduces support to profile DirectX applications on the CPU host. These versions of the DirectX API can be traced:
DXGI
Direct3D 11
Direct3D 12
Direct3D-11-On-12(D3D11On12)
Hardware Support
Analysis Support for Intel® Microarchitecture Code Named Alder Lake
This version of
VTune Profiler
introduces support for Intel® microarchitecture code named Alder Lake in these analysis types:
Microarchitecture Exploration analysis
Memory Access analysis
Support for Intel® Atom® Processors
Support for Intel Atom® Processor P Series code named Snow Ridge, including Hotspots, Microarchitecture Exploration, Memory Access, and Input and Output analyses.
Support for 3rd Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processor Architecture
This releases supports the 3rd Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor architecture (code named Ice Lake Server) .
IDE Support
Support for Microsoft Visual Studio* 2022
This release introduces support for the integration of
VTune Profiler
into Microsoft Visual Studio 2022.
VTune Profiler
Server
New Capabilities for Account and Privilege Handling
VTune Profiler
Server now supports profiling of workloads that require sudo elevation.
Introduced support for a collector wrapper script to elevate privileges before launching or attaching to a workload.
Application Performance Snapshot
Metric tooltips in HTML reports
Metric tooltips in APS HTML reports now present a more holistic view of metrics and their properties. The new tooltips present a compact yet comprehensive overview of a metric, which helps you to better understand the importance of metrics in performance analysis. This change includes a visual bar that indicates where the metric value stands in terms of current performance and tuning potential.
PCIe bandwidth info in CLI reports
APS command line reports now include PCIe bandwidth metrics. This data is only available on server platforms when using the Sampling Driver.
New reports and filters
APS now features the following new types of reports and filters:
Node topology report: view relations between ranks, nodes, and PCIe devices.
Metrics report: get a configurable table that displays any collected metric for each rank, node, or device.
Ability to filter data by node.
Outlier Detection
This release introduces a mechanism for the detection of outliers, or individual metric values contributing to an average metric that differ significantly from the overall distribution or break a certain threshold. Outliers can cause imbalance and distort average metric values. You can now see outliers in both HTML and CLI reports, with attribution to specific rank or node where an outlier occurred.
Metric Tooltip Enhancements
Metric tooltips now visualize ranges of average metrics, with their minimum, maximum, and average contributing values.
MPI Support
Support for MPI applications in GPU and IO analyses
The GPU Offload, GPU Compute/Media Hotspots, and Input and Output analyses now support profiling of MPI applications, as described in the MPI Code Analysis topic.
User Interface
Main Vertical Toolbar
This release introduces a new main vertical toolbar to enhance your user experience. All controls previously located in the main horizontal toolbar are now located on this toolbar. The vertical toolbar is designed to enhance your experience with clear, bright controls.
Enhanced Project Navigator User Experience
The Project Navigator pane now features menu options to open a new or existing project to better facilitate your
VTune
Profiler
experience.
Improvements to Vectorization Information
The Vectorization sections of Performance Snapshot and HPC Performance Characterization analyses have been enriched to provide a clearer picture of the state of vectorization in your application. Quickly see if your code is not vectorized at all, if your code does not use the latest vector instruction set extension, or if your code has too many scalar instructions. This version of
VTune
Profiler
also features improved recommendations to resolve vectorization issues.
Rich Metric Tooltips in Multiple Analyses
This release introduces rich metric tooltips in Performance Snapshot, Hotspots, HPC Performance Characterization, and Microarchitecture Exploration analyses. The new tooltips aim to make metrics more intuitive by providing visualizations for thresholds, desired direction (more/less is better), and tuning potential. Hover over a metric to get this tooltip.
Detection of Compilation with Low Optimization Level in Hotspots Analysis
When debug information is available,
VTune Profiler
now detects and flags modules that may have been compiled using non-optimal compiler optimization flags in the
Top Hotspots
section of the Hotspots analysis result. This can help detect underutilization of compiler optimization capabilities and correct the build system setup.
Platform Diagram Extended with Persistent Memory Block
For Input and Output and Memory Access analyses, the
Platform Diagram
shown in
Summary
windows now features a dedicated block for Persistent Memory devices, together with average per-socket bandwidth.
This data is available on server platforms based on Intel microarchitectures code named Cascade Lake and Ice Lake.
Changes to Viewpoint Selection
The Viewpoint selection was adjusted with respect to each analysis type. Now, the viewpoint selection is disabled for certain analysis types, and only features a managed set of most helpful viewpoints for other analysis types. You can re-enable the display of all applicable viewpoints in the Options pane.
Code Annotations
New Instrumentation and Tracing Technology API Capabilities
A new Histogram API was added to ITT API. This API enables you to collect arbitrary histogram data without extra overhead. The Summary tab of the Input and Output analysis automatically displays this data in the form of a histogram.
Debug Formats
Support for DWARF5 Debug Format
VTune Profiler
now supports version 5 of the DWARF debug format. You can now use debug information in DWARF 5 format to resolve function names and source locations for binaries.
Command Line Analysis
Perf Tool Parameters for All Analysis Types
You can now use the target-system command to get parameters on the command line for the native
perf
tool for all CPU hardware-based analysis types, including custom analyses. Use the
get-perf-cmd
argument for this purpose. You can collect the
perf
trace on a target with the Linux Perf tool and then import the trace to the VTune Profiler UI.
Documentation
Information on Hybrid CPU Analysis
The
VTune Profiler
User Guide features a new topic that explains how to profile applications that run on hybrid platforms.
Guidance resource on GPU-profiling features in
Intel® VTune™
Profiler
A new article captures learning pathways to profile GPUs and illustrates techniques to Optimize Applications for Intel® GPUs with
Intel® VTune™
Profiler
. Use this article to understand the
Intel® VTune™
Profiler
workflow to profile and optimize GPUs. The article also informs about several key resources including procedural topics, cookbook recipes, and webinars that explain GPU compute profiling and graphics profiling with Intel software analyzer products.
New CLI Cheat Sheet for quick reference
Added a new downloadable document, the
VTune
Profiler
CLI Cheat Sheet. You can use this print-friendly PDF for quick reference on the
VTune
Profiler
command-line interface.
New Recipes in
VTune Profiler
Cookbook
The
VTune Profiler
Performance Analysis Cookbook features these new recipes:
Measure the performance impact of non-uniform memory access (NUMA) in multi-processor systems.
Analyze hot code paths in your application using Flame Graphs.
Improve hotspot observability in a C++ application using Flame Graphs.
Simplified Chinese translation of the Top-Down Microarchitecture Analysis Method recipe.