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Application Note

P6 Family Processor Performance Measurement Utility for Windows NT

Information in this document is provided in connection with Intel products. No license, express or implied, by estoppel or otherwise, to any intellectual property rights is granted by this document. Except as provided in Intel's Terms and Conditions of Sale for such products, Intel assumes no liability whatsoever, and Intel disclaims any express or implied warranty, relating to sale and/or use of Intel products including liability or warranties relating to fitness for a particular purpose, merchantability, or infringement of any patent, copyright or other intellectual property right. Intel products are not intended for use in medical, life saving, or life sustaining applications. Intel may make changes to specifications and product descriptions at any time, without notice.

Copyright (c) Intel Corporation 1997.

*Third-party brands and names are the property of their respective owners.

CONTENTS:

Introduction

The P6Perf utility extends the Microsoft* Windows NT* standard Performance Monitor (PerfMon) aplet to collect and display the advanced processor performance information. With PerfMon, this information can be displayed side-by-side with other system performance parameters.

P6 Family Processor Performance Measurement

P6Perf uses the P6 family processor’s performance monitoring counters to collect the performance information. These counters can either count events or measure duration. When counting events, a counter is incremented each time a specified event takes place or a specified number of events takes place. When measuring duration, a counter counts the number of processor clocks that occur while a specified condition is true. The counters can register a vast number of events. However, a P6 family processor has only two performance monitoring counters, so that only up to two events can be registered simultaneously. With P6Perf you can easily select the events being registered. You can change the counter assignment at any time.

For more information on P6 family processor’s performance monitoring counters and the list of the events that can be monitored, refer to the IntelŪ PentiumŪ Pro Family Developer’s Manual, volume 3.

System Requirements

Installation

To install P6Perf,

  1. Download the file P6PERFNT.ZIP.
  2. Login with administrator access rights.
  3. Unpack the file P6PERFNT.ZIP into any directory on your hard drive.
  4. Run INSTALL.BAT.

Note:

Usage

  1. Start Windows NT Performance Monitor PERFMON.EXE.
  2. Select "Edit | Add to Chart" or click on the "+" toolbar button.
  3. Use the automatically opened "P6 Event Selector" window to select the events for monitoring.
  4. In the "Add to Chart" dialog select "P6 Family Processor Events" as Object and Event1 and/or Event2 as Counters and press ENTER or click on OK.

For more information, please refer to the P6Perf online Help, accessible through the "P6 Event Selector" window.

Example:

To monitor all memory references made by the processor,

  1. In the P6 Event Selector" window select "Event1" as Event, "Data Cache Unit" as Unit, and "DATA_MEM_REFS" as Name and press ENTER.
  2. In the PerfMon’s "Add to Chart" dialog select "P6 Family Processor Events" as Object and "Event1/sec" as Counter and press ENTER.

Note:

Example:

To monitor the instruction cache miss rate,

  1. In the P6 Event Selector" window select "Event1" as Event, "Instruction Fetch Unit" as Unit, and "IFU_FETCH_MISS" as Name. Then select "Event2", "Instruction Fetch Unit", and "IFU_FETCH". Press ENTER or click on the "Apply" button.
  2. In the PerfMon’s "Add to Chart" dialog select "P6 Family Processor Events" as Object and "% Event1/Event2" as Counter and press ENTER.

Limitations and Known Problems

The P6Perf utility is currently intended to be used on a uniprocessor system only.

Proceed to P6Perf download area.

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* Legal Information © 1998 Intel Corporation