Intel® Integrated Native Developer Experience (Intel® INDE) is a cross-architecture productivity suite that provides developers with the tools needed to analyze media workloads. If you need to verify that the workload does in fact take advantage of Intel hardware as intended, the System Analyzer tool (included with Intel INDE) can provide that insight. For the purpose of this series, we will use Intel INDE in a Windows* environment.
The Intel INDE starter edition can be downloaded for free via the following link: https://registrationcenter.intel.com/RegCenter/ComForm.aspx?ProductID=2329
For more information regarding Intel INDE go to: https://software.intel.com/en-us/intel-inde
In this tutorial, we will use System Analyzer version 2014 R4 14.4.238908. Note that future versions might introduce updates that will cause specific parts of this tutorial to deviate.
With the System Analyzer tool, you can display real-time statistics. You also have the option to export these statistics to a CSV file to log the information.
To start, you must first launch the "Graphics Monitor". It will appear in your task bar. Right-clicking this icon will bring up a set of options. Select "System Analyzer". Once it opens, you will be prompted with the image below.
Make sure you connect to "This Machine". Next, select "System View" so that you see the image below.
For the scope of this tutorial, we can minimize every metric except "Media". Under "Media" you should see the following:
EU Engine Usage
GHAL3D
GPU Overall Usage
MFX Decode Usage
MFX Encode Usage
MFX Engine Usage
OpenCL/MDF Usage
VPP DXVA1
VPP DXVA2
VPPDXVAHD
Dragging any of the above metrics into the right panes will allow you to see its real-time usage. To learn more about each metric, go to: https://software.intel.com/sites/products/documentation/gpa/14.4/win/index.htm
And then expand "Analyzing Windows* OS Graphics Applications" -> "Performance Metrics Reference" -> "Media Metrics".
In the example below, I am transcoding a video file. In this context, transcoding converts my video file from one format to another. As you can see, this operation is being hardware accelerated by the media fixed function (MFX) hardware on my Intel® Core™ processor-based system. The decoding and encoding metrics are showing 27.3% and 34.5% usage respectively.
The System Analyzer tool also gives you the option to export the real-time data to a file. When the "CSV" icon is activated it will glow red. During this time, all the data from active metrics will be exported to a file called "System View_<date and time>.csv", located in Documents folder under GPA_2014_R4.
This is very helpful if you would like to see the data over time or calculate averages.
Conclusion
In summary, you have been exposed to one of the many different usages the Intel INDE tool can provide. With the System Analyzer, you can monitor applications in real-time to determine the validity of the hardware enabled feature claims. This will allow you to test and validate apps in a more effective manner.
In the next article, we will take a look at a different application called "VTune™", that provides unique metrics not covered in the System Analyzer.
Other Related Articles
https://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2014/06/16/getting-started-with-intel-inde
https://software.intel.com/en-us/videos/intel-inde-tools-for-developers
https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-inde-2015-release-notes
About the Author
Leland Martin is a technical marketing engineer in the Software Solutions Group. He works in the Developer Relations Division to ultimately help enable developers to create applications that are optimized to take advantage of Intel hardware.