13/Jun 2013
By admin
1 min. read
It’s been a long time coming, but I finally found time to update MemTracer C# to support 64-bit applications (so 64-bit memory pointers + callstack addresses).
14/Nov 2010
By admin
7 min. read
(I’m seriously running out of subtitle ideas). Some years ago I started to toy with an memory tracing/debugging tool idea. First proof-of-concept implementation has been created in few days and while it worked with a very simple test app, it required major overhaul before integrating with any real-world program. Somewhere in February 2008 I had a new version, that proved itself very useful during my adventure with enhanced version of certain PC RPG (as it later turned out, it was by far the most memory stressing project’).
15/Oct 2008
By admin
1 min. read
If you’re familiar with MemTracer project you may be interested to know there’s a version that can be actually hooked to external application without much hassle. It has been created by Jean-Silvestre Zirani, visit project page for details. Jean contacted me some time ago, we had nice chats about issues with debugging memory related problems, I sent him latest sources and he decided to move MT to a more usable state.
5/Apr 2008
By admin
9 min. read
You may remember my proof-of-concept experiment - MemTracer. It started as a hobby project, but recently I had chance to test it in a real world application. It quickly turned out there’s a big difference between my simple test program and full blown game performing hundreds of memory operations per second.
Below you can find list of conclusions I drew from this experience:
realtime analysis is next to useless.
21/Jan 2008
By admin
2 min. read
Recently I’ve been trying to move MemTracer from experiment category to something that’s actually usable in real world scenario. It requires more work than I expected, but it’s slowly moving forward. One of the first problems I encountered was StackWalk64 function. It works nicely, but when called very often it can cause noticeable slowdowns. Walking the stack can be done manually by ESP/EBP traversing, but on Windows XP/Vista platforms it’s actually easier to use undocumented RtlCaptureStackBackTrace function.
24/Nov 2007
By admin
1 min. read
Seems like I should add some more info about previous note. There are two applications:
memtest.exe - C++, it acts as a server, starts and waits for connection. As soon as it’s established it starts sending info about memory operations.
MemTracer - C#, client application. It connects to the server and perform all the analysis of memory allocations/frees. In real world scenario memtest would be our game, role of MemTracer stays the same as it is.
19/Nov 2007
By admin
4 min. read
As we’re more or less done with The Witcher, I’ve some time (and energy) to do some hobby coding again. Recently I’ve been toying with a new approach to memory allocations tracking. “Traditional” way is to overload new/delete operators, so that they take additional arguments (file+line) then use some preprocessor magic to call them with __FILE__ + __LINE__. Best known example of this approach is probably Paul Nettle’s Memory Manager.