Using Hardware Performance Counters in Linux

c++ c linux multithreading multicore
MetallicPriest picture MetallicPriest · Aug 18, 2011 · Viewed 7.6k times · Source

I want to use the Hardware Performance Counters that come with the Intel and AMD x86_64 multicore processors to calculate the number of retired stores by a program. I want each thread to calculate its retired stores separately. Can it be done? And if so, how in C/C++?

Answer

osgx picture osgx · Aug 18, 2011

You can use Perfctr or PAPI if you want to count hardware events on some part of the program internally (without starting any 3rd party tool).

Perfctr quickstart: http://www.ale.csce.kyushu-u.ac.jp/~satoshi/how_to_use_perfctr.htm

PAPI homepage: http://icl.cs.utk.edu/papi/

PerfSuite good doc: http://perfsuite.ncsa.illinois.edu/publications/LJ135/x27.html

If you can do this externally, there is a perf command of modern Linux.

perf wiki: https://perf.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page

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