Timers and Counters

The Timers and Callers panels show a list of events that occur within a highlighted range in the Timing panel. Each panel has similar controls, but displays different information for each event.

Timers

The Timers panel lists all timer events that run within the time range designated in the Timing panel. In addition to grouped data based on time range, the list can be sorted in ascending or descending order by the values in any active column.

Plotting Events in the Main Graph

Double-click an event in the Timers Panel's list to highlight it. A colored box will appear next to it in the list, and the Main Graph will plot the event in the corresponding color. Double-click the event again to remove it.

Right-click an event and navigate to the Plot Timer sub-menu for more options for plotting graphs.

Aggregation Modes

Click the Modes dropdown to select one of the available aggregation modes. Each mode calculates the stats for timers differently and shows different data.

Instance Mode

In Instance mode, the Timers list displays the following data:

Game/Rendering Frame Mode

In the Game or Rendering frame modes, the Timers list displays inclusive durations for the listed timer events. Inclusive duration is computed for a single frame as the sum of inclusive duration for all instances of the timer in the respective frame. All time values listed are in milliseconds (ms).

Changing Sort Order

To change sort order, or to activate or deactivate columns, right-click on the column. The following options are available:

Instance Count Total Inclusive Time Total Exclusive Time Sort Ascending Sort Descending | Name of timer or group. Number of select instances. Total inclusive duration of selected timer's instances. Total exclusive duration of selected timer's instances. |

Timer Or Group Name Meta Group Name Type Instance Count Total Inclusive Time Max Inclusive Time Average Inclusive Time Median Inclusive Time Min Inclusive Time Total Exclusive Time Max Exclusive Time Acerga Exclusive Time Median Exclusive Time Min Exclusive Time |

Asset Load Time

When starting Timing Insights from the command line the Asset Load Time channel can be used to enable named CPU timers for UObject::Serialize and toggle tracing Blueprint names.

To enable asset load time tracking from the command line, you can use the argument

  -trace=default,AssetLoadTime
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-trace=default,AssetLoadTime

Because there are many timers added when Blueprint names are toggled on, they are hidden in Trace Insights by default.

Enabling Blueprint Names

If you want to enable Blueprint name tracing, you must turn on this argument in the command line.

After enabling Asset Load Time tracking, you can display Blueprint names by adding the argument:

  `-statnamedevents`
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`-statnamedevents`

Executing Commands Without Opening the UI

Timing Insights can be run directly from the command line without opening the UI. You can either specify a single command directly in the command line, or you can execute a series of commands by using a response file. In each case, a set of data is exported to a .csv or .tsv file.

These commands can be useful for running automated tests.

To specify a response file in the commandline, use the parameter -ExecOnAnalysisCompleteCmd and provide the location to export the response file as a .rsp. For example:

UnrealInsights.exe -OpenTraceFile=path/file.utrace -AutoQuit -NoUI -ExecOnAnalysisCompleteCmd="@=D:\Tests\export.rsp"

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UnrealInsights.exe -OpenTraceFile=path/file.utrace -AutoQuit -NoUI -ExecOnAnalysisCompleteCmd="@=D:\Tests\export.rsp"

Export Functionality

The Timers panel includes the capability to export your timing event data by selecting one or more timers and right-clicking on the context menu.

Timer Options Include:

Maximum Duration Instance -- Chooses the event instance with the longest duration. Minimum Duration Instance -- Chooses the event instance with the shortest duration. Maximum Duration Instance in Selection -- As Maximum Duration, but chooses from only the instances in the user's current selection. Minimum Duration Instance in Selection -- As Minimum Duration, but chooses from only the instances in the user's current selection. |

Other Miscellaneous export options include the following:

You can navigate to the Timing view and mark the time you are interested in saving from the main timeline view by clicking and dragging on the Time bar. Observe the grouped stats are updated in the Timers panel to reflect the time selection. From the Timers panel, manually select the timers you are interested in saving or use Ctrl+A to select all timers. Next, press CTRL+S or select Export from the context menu and choose a .tsv,.txt or *.csv file to save the selected timers and their aggregated statistics (for selected time range). |

Navigate to the Timing view, and mark the time you are interested in exporting from the main timeline view, by clicking and dragging on the Time bar. If no time selection is made, the entire timeline will be exported. In the Timing panel, click on the CPU/GPU thread tracks to show or hide the tracks you want to export. Select the timers you are interested in, or use Ctrl+A to select all timers. Select Export Timing Events (Selection)... from context menu and choose a tab-seperated value (.tsv/.txt) or comma-seperated value (*.csv) file. You can export the "Threads" and "Timers" in order to match the thread id and timer id with the names of threads and timers. |

Source File For CPU Timers

In the Timers panel, the source file and line number is visible in the tooltip of each timer.

Counters

The Counters panel lists all stats incremented during the same time period as the Timers panel. You can rearrange the panel by updating the sort order and column organization.

The following Groups are available:

Context Menu

The context menu for Counters provides options for copying data and exporting values to tab-separated value (TSV) spreadsheets.

1/Frame Counters

Normal counters show all intermediate points within a single frame of activity. 1/frame variants have the ShouldClearEveryFrame flag, and show with the (1/frame) suffix. These only show a single value per each Game thread, specifically the last value in the respective frame. These counters are more useful when investigating variation between multiple frames.

Windows Performance Counters

Windows performance counters appear in the Counters list when you satisfy the following prerequisites:

• -perfcounters is present on the command-line.

• The counters trace channel is enabled.

These counters display with the prefix PC /.

Callers and Callees

The Callers and the Callees panels display a hierarchical list of task events. When you select an event from the Timing view, hovering over the information icon of an individual task will display the following information:

• Id
• Name
• Type
• Source
• Number of instances (Num Instances)
  • Detailed information on the Instance count, and total Inclusive and Exclusive time.
• Average Inclusive / Exclusive Time
  • Total amount of inclusive/exclusive time divided by the instance count.
• Child Instance Count
  • Total number of timing event instances of the child timers (callers or callees).