What's new? Update 16 - Intel® VTune™ Amplifier XE 2013

Intel® VTune™ Amplifier XE is an easy to use performance and thread profiler for C, C++, C#, Fortran, Java and MPI developers. No special recompiles are needed, just start profiling.  Hotspots are highlighted on the source.  A powerful timeline makes it easy to tune your application and scale performance on multicore processors.

New for Update 16! 

Note: We are now labeling analysis tool updates as "Recommended for all users" or "Optional update unless you need…".  Recommended updates will be available about once a quarter for users who do not want to update frequently.  Optional updates may be released more frequently, providing access to new processor support, new features, and critical fixes.

Resources

• Learn (“How to” videos, technical articles, documentation, …)
• Support
• Release Notes

Contents

File: vtune_amplifier_xe_2013_update16.tar.gz

Installer for Intel® VTune™ Amplifier XE 2013 Update 16 for Linux*

File: VTune_Amplifier_XE_2013_update16_setup.exe

Installer for Intel® VTune™ Amplifier XE 2013 Update 16 for Windows*

* Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

Microsoft, Windows, Visual Studio, Visual C++, and the Windows logo are trademarks, or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.

Next: What's New in Update 15?

Details:

Graphical interface for remote data collection on Linux* systems via SSH

You may use the VTune Amplifier XE graphical interface running on a Windows* or Linux* host system to collect data on a remote Linux* system via SSH. To configure remote collection:

• Go to the Project Properties dialog Target tab
• Select the remote Linux (SSH) from the Target system drop-down menu
• In the SSH details field, enter the username and hostname for your remote Linux system in username@hostname format
• Select your profiling target from the Target type drop-down menu. You may select any type of profiling target: application, process, or system analysis
• Configure other Project properties if required and click OK to save your settings and close the Project Properties dialog box
• Start a New Analysis
  

  
  NOTE:
  1. ssh/scp or plink/pscp tools must be available in the PATH
  2. When collecting data remotely, VTune Amplifier XE looks for the compatible collector on the remote system in the default install location: /opt/intel/vtune_amplifier_xe_<version>. It also temporary stores performance results on the target system in the /tmp directory. If you installed the VTune Amplifier XE on the remote system to a different location and need to specify another temporary directory, you need to set the following environment variable on the host before starting amplxe-gui:

  AMPLXE_TARGET_PRODUCT_DIR=<another install path to VTune Amplifier on remote system>
  AMPLXE_TARGET_TMP_DIR=<another temporary directory>

  3. If your target application requires custom working directory or user-defined environment variables you can specify them via a launching script and use the script as an application to launch.

  For more details please refer to the "Collecting Data Remotely from the VTune Amplifier GUI" topic in the product help.

Simplified User API collection setting for native analysis on the Intel® Xeon Phi™ coprocessor

Update 16 simplifies setting up ITT API collection for native analysis on the Intel® Xeon Phi™ coprocessor. If you chose the default installation options, with the libittnotify library installed to the coprocessor (/usr/lib64/libittnotify.so exists on your card), set the KMP_FOR_TPROFILE=1 environment variable for the application to launch via ssh command, or via your launch script, to the card:

• [host]$ amplxe-cl -c knc-hotspots -- ssh mic0 KMP_FOR_TPROFILE=1 /home/user/myApp

For more details please refer to the "ITT API Collection on the Intel® Xeon Phi™ Coprocessor" topic in the product help.

Import externally collected data in CSV format into existing VTune Amplifier results

To import a csv file with the externally collected data into an existing VTune Amplifier result use Import from CSV option in the Analysis Target tab, or Analysis Type tabs in GUI or -import option in the command line interface. Importing a csv file does not affect symbol resolution in the existing result. For more details please refer to the “About Adding External Data to the Intel® VTune™ Amplifier” topic in the product help.

Support for importing a csv file that does not specify a hostname for the target system

You can import a csv file that does not specify a hostname for the target system but contains time stamps represented in the UTC format. In this case, the VTune Amplifier displays global data (not attributed to specific threads/processes) only. For more details please refer to the “Creating a CSV File with External Data” topic in the product help.

Support for external data collectors

VTune Amplifier can launch external data collection using the Custom collector target configuration option or the -custom-collector command line option. For more details, please refer to the “Using a Custom Collector” topic in the product help.

Search functionality for the grid views added to the toolbar

Find button is available on the grid toolbar, which invokes the search dialog in the same way as Ctr-F. See “Searching for Data” for more details.

Hardware event-based analysis types now support collection data limit 

Hardware event-based analysis types now support the collection data limit to prevent collecting large amounts of data, which may slow down data processing. For more details, please refer to “Limiting Data Collection Size”

Usability improvements for the structure of hardware event-based sampling analysis types

The hardware event-based sampling analysis tree was re-structured to introduce cross-CPU basic configurations and separate advanced CPU-specific analysis configurations. General Exploration and Bandwidth analysis types are shared between all supported CPUs. CPU Specific Analysis types are expanded automatically according to the detected system type. For more details, please refer to “About Performance Analysis with VTune Amplifier”

Timeline grouping options

Use the Timeline grouping menu to group the data by program units. A grouping level depends on the analysis type. For more details, please refer to “Managing Timeline View” in the product help.

Event reference help for Intel microarchitecture code name Haswell and Intel® Xeon Phi™ coprocessor

Event reference help is available for Intel microarchitecture code name Haswell processor and Intel® Xeon Phi™ coprocessor (code name: Knights Corner): go to Help > Intel Processor Event Reference menu in the standalone interface or Help > Intel VTune Amplifier XE 2013 > Intel Processor Event Reference in the Microsoft* Visual Studio* IDE.

Auto-rebuild of sampling and power drivers at system boot time after Linux kernel update

A Linux kernel update can lead to incompatibility with VTune Amplifier XE drivers for event-based sampling (EBS) analysis and power analysis. If the system has installed VTune Amplifier XE boot scripts, the drivers will be automatically re-built by the boot scripts at system boot time. Note: kernel development sources that are needed on the system for driver rebuild must correspond to the Linux kernel update.