Comparing ROCprofiler-SDK to other ROCm profiling tools

ROCprofiler-SDK is an improved version of ROCm profiling tools that enables more efficient implementations and better thread safety while avoiding problems that plague the former implementations of ROCProfiler and ROCTracer. Here are the distinct ROCprofiler-SDK features, which also highlight the improvements over ROCProfiler and ROCTracer:

• Improved tool initialization

• Support for simultaneous use of the same services by multiple tools

• Simplified control of one or more data collection services

• Improved error checking and logging

• Backward ABI compatibility

• PC sampling (beta implementation)

The former implementations allow a tool to access any of the services provided by ROCProfiler or ROCTracer, such as API tracing and kernel tracing, by calling roctracer_init() when an ROCm runtime is initially loaded. As the calling tool is not required to specify during initialization, the services it needs to use, the libraries must be effectively prepared for any service to be available anytime. This behavior introduces unnecessary overhead and makes thread-safe data management difficult, as tools generally don’t use all the available services. For example, ROCTracer always installs wrappers around every runtime API and adds indirection overhead through the ROCTracer library to check for the current service configuration in a thread-safe manner.

ROCprofiler-SDK introduces context to solve the preceding issues. Contexts are effectively bundles of service configurations. ROCprofiler-SDK provides a single opportunity for a tool to create as many contexts as required. A tool can group all services into one context, create one context per service, or choose a mix. This change in the design allows ROCprofiler-SDK to be aware of the services that might be requested by a tool at any given time. The design change empowers ROCprofiler-SDK to:

• Avoid unnecessary preparation for services that are never used. If no registered contexts request HSA API tracing, no wrappers need to be generated.

• Perform more extensive checks during service specification and inform a tool about potential issues early.

• Allow multiple tools to use certain services simultaneously.

• Improve thread safety without introducing parallel bottlenecks.

• Manage internal data and allocations more efficiently.

Comparing command-line tool options: ROCprofiler(rocprof, rocprofv2) and ROCprofiler-SDK(rocprofv3)

ROCprofiler-SDK introduces a new command-line tool, rocprofv3, which is a more efficient and flexible version of the ROCprofiler tool.

Table 13 Comparison of ROCprofiler Command-Line Tool’s options

Category	Feature	rocprof	rocprofv2	rocprofv3	Improvements	Notes
Basic tracing options	HIP Trace	–hip-trace	–hip-api, –hip-trace	–hip-trace	No change	rocprof and rocprofv2 –hip-trace options include kernel dispatches and memory copy activities, which is not the case in rocprofv3
Basic tracing options	HSA Trace	–hsa-trace	–hsa-trace	–hsa-trace	No change	rocprof and rocprofv2 –hsa-trace options include kernel dispatches and memory copy activities, which is not the case in rocprofv3
Basic tracing options	Scratch Memory Trace	Not Available	Not Available	–scratch-memory-trace	New option to trace scratch memory operations
Basic tracing options	Marker Trace(ROCTx)	–roctx-trace	–roctx-trace	–marker-trace	Improved ROCTx library with more features
Basic tracing options	Memory Copy Trace	Part of HIP and HSA Traces	Part of HIP and HSA Traces	–memory-copy-trace	Provides granularity for memory move operations
Basic tracing options	Kernel Trace	–kernel-trace	–kernel-trace	–kernel-trace	Performance improvement.
Granular tracing options	HIP runtime trace	Part of –hip-trace option	Part of –hip-trace option	–hip-runtime-trace	For collecting HIP Runtime API Traces, e.g. public HIP API functions starting with ‘hip’ (i.e. hipSetDevice).
Granular tracing options	HIP compiler trace	Not Available	Not Available	–hip-compiler-trace	For collecting HIP Compiler generated code Traces, e.g. HIP API functions starting with ‘__hip’ (i.e. __hipRegisterFatBinary).
Granular tracing options	HSA core API trace	Part of –hsa-trace option	Part of –hsa-trace option	–hsa-core-trace	New option for collecting only HSA API Traces (core API), e.g. HSA functions prefixed with only hsa_ (i.e. hsa_init)
Granular tracing options	HSA AMD trace	Part of –hsa-trace option	Part of –hsa-trace option	–hsa-amd-trace	For collecting HSA API Traces (AMD-extension API), e.g. HSA function prefixed with hsa_amd_ (i.e. hsa_amd_coherency_get_type)
Granular tracing options	HSA Image Extension trace	Part of –hsa-trace option	Part of –hsa-trace option	–hsa-image-trace	New option for collecting HSA API Traces (Image-extenson API), e.g. HSA functions prefixed with only hsa_ext_image_ (i.e. hsa_ext_image_get_capability).
Granular tracing options	HSA Finalizer trace	Part of –hsa-trace option	Part of –hsa-trace option	–hsa-finalizer-trace	New option for collecting HSA API Traces (Finalizer-extension API), e.g. HSA functions prefixed with only hsa_ext_program_ (i.e. hsa_ext_program_create)
Aggregate tracing options	Sys Trace	–sys-trace [hip-trace|hsa-trace|roctx-trace|kernel-trace]	–sys-trace [hip-trace|hsa-trace|roctx-trace|kernel-trace]	` -s, –sys-trace` [hip-trace|hsa-trace|scratch-trace|memory-copy-trace|roctx-trace|kernel-trace]	Extends the sys trace options with more features
Aggregate tracing options	Runtime Trace	Not available	Not available	` -r, –runtime-trace` [hip-runtime-trace|scratch-trace|memory-copy-trace|roctx-trace|kernel-trace]	New option to aggregate trace operations
Kernel naming options	Kernel Name Mangling	Not Available	Not Available	-M, –mangled-kernels	New option for mangled kernel names
Kernel naming options	Kernel Name Truncation	–basenames <on|off>	–basenames	-T, –truncate-kernels	New option for truncating the demangled kernel names
Kernel naming options	Kernel Rename	–roctx-rename	Not available	–kernel-rename	New option to use region names defined by roctxRangePush/roctxRangePop regions to rename the kernels
Post-processing tracing options	Statistics	–stats	Not Available	–stats	Statistics for the collected traces
Post-processing tracing options	Summary	Not available	Not available	-S, –summary	New option to output a single summary of tracing data after the profiling session	rocprof generated the post-processing step’s summary, stats, JSON, and database files with much less information.
Post-processing tracing options	Summary Per Domain	Not available	Not available	-D, –summary-per-domain	New option to output summary for each tracing domain after the profiling session	rocprof –stats option had less number of domains in the summary reports than rocprofv3
Post-processing tracing options	Summary Groups	Not available	Not available	–summary-groups REGULAR_EXPRESSION	New option to output a summary for each set of domains matching the regular expression, e.g. ‘KERNEL_DISPATCH|MEMORY_COPY’ will generate a summary from all the tracing data in the KERNEL_DISPATCH and MEMORY_COPY domains
Summary options	Summary Output File	Not available	Not available	–summary-output-file SUMMARY_OUTPUT_FILE	New option to output summary to a file, stdout, or stderr (default: stderr)
Summary options	Summary Units	Not available	Not available	-u , –summary-units	New option to output summary in desired time units {sec,msec,usec,nsec}
Display options	List Metrics	–list-basic, –list-derived	–list-counters	-L, –list-metrics	A valid YAML is supported for this option now
Perfetto-specific options	Perfetto data collection backend	Not available	Not available	–perfetto-backend {inprocess,system}	New option for perfetto data collection backend. ‘system’ mode requires starting traced and perfetto daemons	rocprofv2 used only in-process collection for perfetto plugin, However, rocprofv3 give the option to the user
Perfetto-specific options	Perfetto Buffer Size	Not available	Setting env variable rocprofiler_PERFETTO_MAX_BUFFER_SIZE_KIB to the desired buffer size	–perfetto-buffer-size {KB}	New option to define size of buffer for perfetto output in KB. default: 1 GB
Perfetto-specific options	Perfetto Buffer fill Policy	Not available	Not available	–perfetto-buffer-fill-policy {discard,ring_buffer}	New option or handling new records when perfetto has reached the buffer limit	rocprofv2 always used TraceConfig_BufferConfig_FillPolicy_RING_BUFFER fill policy.
Perfetto-specific options	Perfetto shared memory size	Not available	Not available	–perfetto-shmem-size-hint KB	New option to define perfetto shared memory size hint in KB. default: 64 KB
Filtering options	Kernel Filtration options for Counter Collection	Supported in input.xml file (supports range, gpu and kernel filtration)	kernel: <kernel_name> (can only be provided in input.txt file)	–kernel-include-regex, –kernel-exclude-regex, –kernel-iteration-range	Extensive control over output options using regular expressions
I/O options	Output Directory	-d <data directory>	-d | –output-directory	-d OUTPUT_DIRECTORY, –output-directory OUTPUT_DIRECTORY	rocprofv3 supports special keys for runtime values, e.g. %pid% gets replaced by the process ID
I/O options	Output File	-o <output file>	-o | –output-file-name	-o OUTPUT_FILE, –output-file OUTPUT_FILE	rocprofv3 supports special keys for runtime values, e.g. %pid% gets replaced by the process ID
I/O options	Logging	Minimal logging via environment variable	Minimal logging via environment variable	–log-level {fatal,error,warning,info,trace,env}	Extensive logging options
I/O options	Plugins	Not Available	plugin support for different output formats	Replaced by –output-format option	Not needed as rocprofv3 supports multiple output formats
I/O options	Output Formats	CSV, JSON (Chrome-Tracing format)	CSV, JSON (Chrome-Tracing format), Perfetto, CTF	CSV, JSON (custom schema), Perfetto, OTF2	# Multiple output formats can be supported in single run. # OTF2 can visualize larger trace files compared to perfetto.	The Perfetto UI does not accept the JSON output format produced by rocprofv3. Perfetto is dropping support for the JSON Chrome tracing format in favor of the binary Perfetto protobuf format (.pftrace extension), which is supported by rocprofv3.
I/O options	Counter Collection	Supports input text and XML format	Only supports input text format	Input support for text, YAML and JSON formats	# Its not possible to check for valid text file. Hence rocprofv3 supports strongly typed input formats. # YAML and JSON formats are more readable and easy to maintain. # Allows flexibility to add more features for the tool input
I/O options	Providing Custom metrics file	-m <metric file>	-m <metric file>	Not available	Not yet in rocprofv3
Advanced options	Preload	Not Available	Not Available	–preload	Libraries to prepend to LD_PRELOAD (usually for sanitizers)
Trace Control options	Trace Period	–trace-period	-tp | –trace-period	Not available	Not yet in rocprofv3
Trace Control options	Trace start	–trace-start <on|off>	Not available	Not available	Not yet in rocprofv3
Trace Control options	Flush Interval	–flush-rate	–flush-interval	Not available	Not applicable for rocprofv3
Trace Control options	Merge Traces	–merge-traces	Not available	Not available	Not yet in rocprofv3
Legacy options	Timestamp On/Off	–timestamp <on|off>	Not available	Not available	Not applicable for rocprofv3
Legacy options	Context wait	–ctx-wait	Not available	Not available	Not applicable for rocprofv3
Legacy options	Context Limit	–ctx-limit <max number>	Not available	Not available	Not applicable for rocprofv3
Legacy options	Code Object Tracking	–obj-tracking <on|off>	Always ON in rocprofv2	Always ON in rocprofv3
Legacy options	Heartbeat	–heartbeat <rate sec>	Not available	Not available	Not applicable for rocprofv3

Timing Difference Between rocprofv3 and rocprofv1/v2

rocprofv3 has improved the accuracy of timing information by reducing the tool overhead required to collect data and reducing the interference to the timing of the kernel being measured. The result of this work is a reduction in variance of kernel times received for the same kernel execution and more accurate timing in general. These changes have not been backported (and will not be backported) to rocprofv1/v2, so there can be substantial (20%) differences in execution time reported by v1/v2 vs v3 for a single kernel execution. Over a large number of samples of the same kernel, the difference in average execution time is in the low single digit percentage time with a much tighter variance of results on rocprofv3. We have included testing in the test suite to verify the timing information outputted by rocprofv3 to ensure that the values we are returning are accurate.

Default run of rocprofv3 and rocprofv1/v2

rocprofv3 has a different default behavior than rocprofv1/v2 when being run without any option. The default behavior of rocprofv3 is to collect all available agents on the system and to output it in csv format. The default behavior of rocprofv1/v2 was to output the kernel traces in CSV format. In rocprofv3, kernel traces can be obtained by using --kernel-trace option.