dcprofiler

This project harnesses the capabilities of GCC's instrument functions to profile Dreamcast applications. The instrument functions are automatically inserted at the beginning and end of every function, sending profiling data to your PC. The desktop application, dctrace, processes this data to generate a .dot file, which provides a visual representation of the call graph for all functions in your application. This detailed graph includes the number of times each function was called and the percentage of time spent executing each function, offering valuable insights into your application's performance.

There is two parts to this project:

1. The file you include in your project (profiler.c)
2. The application(dctrace) that parses the data (trace.bin) your Dreamcast application generates. This application is based on the project HERE but with added counters to show the time spent in each function.

Instructions:

1. Add 'profiler.c' to your projects source directory.
2. Edit your makefile to add '-g -finstrument-functions' to your KOS_CFLAGS and 'profiler.o' to your OBJS.
3. Use dc-tool-ip to send your elf file to Dreamcast: sudo /PATH/TO/dc-tool-ip -c "/PATH/TO/PROJECT" -t 192.168.1.137 -x main.elf
4. Profiling automatically starts when the application runs, and automatically stops when the application exits.
5. Run dctrace application on your elf with the command: dctrace main.elf

This assumes a couple of things. That your 'sh-elf-addr2line' application is in '/opt/toolchains/dc/sh-elf/bin/' directory and that your .elf file and trace.bin(generated by your application) file are the same directory.

6. That will generate a graph.dot file that you can use the following command to create a JPG: dot -Tjpg graph.dot -o graph.jpg

You will need the dot application to generate an image. Find installation information HERE. To install dot on macOS using Homebrew, run: brew install graphviz

Alternatively, to view your DOT file and convert it to an image, paste the contents of the .DOT file into this online editor: https://dreampuf.github.io/GraphvizOnline/

TIPS:

1. To exclude a method from profiling, add attribute ((no_instrument_function)) to its prototype or definition (if there isn't a prototype). Or in your Makefile, use -finstrument-functions-exclude-function-list=sym,sym,....

2. To ignore whole files you don't want to profile, add -finstrument-functions-exclude-file-list=file,file,... to your Makefile.

Here is an example of my Makefile:

TARGET = main.elf
DATETIME := $(shell date '+%Y-%m-%d_%I-%M-%S_%p')
...

profileip: $(TARGET)
	sudo /PATH/TO/dc-tool-ip -c "." -t 192.168.1.137 -x $(TARGET)

dot: 
	/PATH/TO/dctrace $(TARGET)

image: dot
	dot -Tjpg graph.dot -o graph_$(DATETIME).jpg

After running the application using make profileip and exiting, use the command make image to generate graph.dot and graph.jpg files.

WARNING:

This profiler generates a large amount of tracing data. It works with dcload-ser, but using it with dcload-ip is preferred.