Timings way off? 25 hours vs 2.5 hours

dannytuppeny

I've been profiling an application recently but the timings seem to be off by a factor of 10. The process takes 2.5 hours and the profiler reports 90,000 seconds (25 hours).

It's a multi-threaded app, but the Time(inc children) that I'm looking at is for a method that is executed within a single thread.

My machine is a Core 2 Duo (dual core) should that have any effect on timing.

Any ideas what causes this?

dannytuppeny

Just a thought - it took 2.5 hours total - with the profiler attached. Since the profiler should be removing its own overhead, I assume the figures should be even lower, and it's out by even more

Brian Donahue

Hi Danny,

There is a know issue with dual-core processors, which you can read about here. It's probably something to do with the way the CPU handles certain timing instructions.

dannytuppeny

Thanks. I'll install that update and see if it makes a difference

dannytuppeny

That solved the problem! With our changes the process took 30 mins and the profiler says it was 14 mins - sounds resonable, since the last time I noticed the profiler was roughly doubling the exceution time :-)

Brian Donahue

I'm very happy that it's working!

If Profiler's time is less than your 'stopwatch', that is the norm; Profiler is supposed to subtract its' own overhead, in other words show how fast the code would execute while not under the 'influence' of the Profiler!