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Using NVTX with Tegra System Profiler

Tegra System Profiler is a multi-core CPU sampling profiler that provides an interactive view of captured profiling data, helping improve overall application performance. The NVIDIA Tools Extension Library (NVTX) is a powerful mechanism that allows users to manually instrument their application. Tegra System Profiler can then collect the information and present it on the timeline.

Tegra System Profiler supports version 1.0 of the NVTX specification, on both Android and Linux-based target devices.

The following features are supported:

• Push-pop ranges.
• Start-end ranges.
• Markers.
• Thread names.

To use NVTX in your application, follow these steps:

1. Add #include "nvToolsExt.h" in your source code. This header file is located in the Target-arm/nvtx/include directory on the host.
2. Link with libnvToolsExt.a static library (-lnvToolsExt compiler flag).
   • For Android, the library is located in Target-arm/armv7 and Target-arm/armv8 directories on the host.
   • For Linux, the library is located in Target-arm-linux/armv7 and Target-arm-linux/armv8 directories on the host.
3. Add the following compiler flags as well: -pthread -ldl -lrt.
4. Add calls to the NVTX API functions. For example, try adding nvtxRangePushA("main") in the beginning of the main() function, and nvtxRangePop() just before the return statement in the end.
5. In the project settings, select the Collect NVTX trace checkbox.
6. On Android, make sure that your application is launched by Tegra System Profiler. This is required so that the necessary launch environment is prepared.
7. On Linux, if the application is launched by Tegra System Profiler, all required environment variables will be set up automatically.
8. On Linux, if launching the application manually, the following environment variables should be specified:

   NVTX_INJECTION32_PATH=/opt/nvidia/tegra_system_profiler/libToolsInjection32.so (for ARMv7 processes)
   NVTX_INJECTION64_PATH=/opt/nvidia/tegra_system_profiler/libToolsInjection64.so (for Aarch64 processes)
   NVTX_START_IMMEDIATELY=1

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