carlorossi

does it exist some tool that may help me to discover which part of a patch is more CPU hungry?

I know that developers usually use applications in "/Developer/Applications/Performance Tools", but honestly I have no idea which one should I use...

I have done a screenshot of "Shark" application exploring active threads: 

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/7602/picture1es5.png

How can I know the ID of a single thread?

Dear all,
does it exist some tool that may help me to discover which part of a patch is more CPU hungry?

I'm on Mac OSX.
I know that developers usually use applications in "/Developer/Applications/Performance Tools", but honestly I have no idea which one should I use...

I have done a screenshot of "Shark" application exploring active threads: http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/7602/picture1es5.png
How can I know the ID of a single thread?

inspecting-cpu-usage-in-max

Tip #1: before Shark starts profiling, tell it you want to profile one particular app instead of every single running process. That reduces information overload considerably. Select "Time Profile (All Thread States)" from the first popup, "Process" from the second popup, and Max/MSP from the third popup (Max must already be running, 'fcourse). Then you can browse the resulting list of Libraries and Symbols. You should recognize some names. Libraries sometimes use reverse-URI notation, like com.cycling74.MaxMSP, which is of course the Max/MSP engine); most external names are also embedded into their function call names.

This won't tell you which sub-patch is using CPU, but it will point out which externals need a lot of time. In general, an external that is using a lot of CPU is one that has to do a lot of processing... ffts for instance. Ain't nothin' you can do about that (except avoid FFT), because FFT requires a lot of math. Anything with graphics will also eat up some horsepower.

There is some documentation on Efficiency in the Tuts&Topics PDF. You might actually find that more helpful than Shark. But good luck with the Performance Tools if you continue to use them.

PS: There is a tutorial on Shark somewhere on Apple's developer site. (Almost) Everything I know about the util, I learned there. Sorry, I don't have a link anymore, but Google might help. Again, good luck.

Tip #1: before Shark starts profiling, tell it you want to profile one particular app instead of every single running process. That reduces information overload considerably. Select "Time Profile (All Thread States)" from the first popup, "Process" from the second popup, and Max/MSP from the third popup (Max must already be running, 'fcourse). Then you can browse the resulting list of Libraries and Symbols. You should recognize some  names. Libraries sometimes use reverse-URI notation, like com.cycling74.MaxMSP, which is of course the Max/MSP engine); most external names are also embedded into their function call names.

PS: There is a tutorial on Shark somewhere on Apple's developer site. (Almost) Everything I know about the util, I learned there. Sorry, I don't have a link anymore, but Google might help. Again, good luck.


After setting up the Popup menus, you of course need to hit the "Start" button and let Shark do its thing for 30". Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Inspecting CPU usage in Max