Performance Profiling | Part 1 An Introduction

Not sure what to do once you start experiencing performance issues in your application after shipping it? Use the profiling tools in Visual Studio! In this multi-part series with profiler PMs Esteban Herrera and Sagar Shetty, we'll explore the world of profiling and the tools that can improve your code's performance. Part 1 defines profiling, the various scenarios for when you should use profiling tools, and a peek into Visual Studio's Performance Profiler feature, which we'll explore more in future parts!
Learn more about profiling in VS here: aka.ms/vsprofilingdocs

[@robertsimpson4412]

I've been using the profiling tools for a while (C++, mostly instrumented) but I've never been able to find how to start the profiler with data collection disabled and then start it later. There are plenty of references to "Launch with Profiling Paused" but this menu option is not present (or is very well hidden) on the versions I'm using (VS 2019 and VS 2022 preview). The help just links to these videos.

[@oswaldumeh]

Amazing tools that can really help with performance challenges investigation. Nice show. I will be looking out for the parts that follow. Well done!

[@sagarshetty6576]

Thanks for the feedback Oswald and glad to hear you will be tuning into future episodes! We have a lot of content we are working on.

[@jabrouni2]

Can't wait for the next one. Would also be helpful if at some point you can take us through how to interpret the results

[@sagarshetty6576]

Glad you enjoyed Haripraghash! We will definitely be doing a much more thorough explanation of how to interpret results in future episodes when we do a deep dive into each individual tool.

[@CoolVishu4u4ever]

Is there any defined frequency of episodes like weekly? Do we have defined agenda what will be covered in future episodes?

[@sagarshetty6576]

Hey Vishal there is not an exact frequency of episodes but the current plan is to focus on a few more deep dives on the main tools within the performance profiler. If there is a topic you are interested in feel free to recommend.

[@volkerdr.milbrandt7692]

Does the performance profiler also support native C++? Will there be episodes regarding profiling C++ or even mixed solutions of native C++ and C#?

[@sagarshetty6576]

Many of the tools do work with native C++ but some such as the .NET Object Allocation tracking do not. You can see a table here: docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/profiling/profiling-feature-tour?view=vs-2019#which-tool-should-i-use outlining what tools work with what platforms and you will see some say .NET only. In our episode on the .NET Async tool a mixed solution was used.

[@RJOVenturesInc]

Very cool feature. Thumbs up!

[@sagarshetty6576]

Thanks Richard!

[@Niohimself]

Can I do C++ code profiling in VSCode, or is it only supported by the full Visual Studio?

[@CarlBerisfordMurray]

Have you ever used these tools on VS? As a customer that really wants to support VS I'm having more and more trouble trying to recommend it as VS becomes slower and slower. In the real world I can't have a 1 project solution, and I don't have time to wait for VS to continually slow down and/or crash.

[@sagarshetty6576]

Hey Carl thanks your feedback! Your points are totally fair and I can assure you our engineering team is hard at work trying to improve the performance of our tools. We are aiming for some perf improvements to land around version 16.9 of Visual Studio so hopefully you will see some improvements then.

[@aaronzhang4717]

This is great

[@TornTech1]

When is the next episode. Could really do this this right now as we try to track down performance hot areas in our production web app

[@sagarshetty6576]

Hey TornTech glad to hear our tools may be of some use! We will be recording some more episodes next week and expect more videos in the following weeks!

[@mikekosak9598]

@@sagarshetty6576 @tornTech so wait a few more weeks for something you need right now

[@mikekosak9598]

Skip to 7:01 for actual content.

[@RNA0ROGER]

Only a tiny fraction of this video was actually useful

[@mikekosak9598]

"So you sorta kinda.." and "You have this and that" and "then you have this and that" and "so we'll talk about what profiling is in another video..." and "to kinda get started " and "to kinda get started.." and "so essentially.." and "so you kinda sorta have..." JEEZ PEOPLE LEARN TO BE CONCISE!!!!!!!!!! SCRIPT IT FIRST

[@miguelroig9916]

please stop saying " kind of..."

[@user-yu6cm9ey4x]

Is this real or bull shit. They're very enthousiastic about uSoft, but I feel it's lost time.