Is there anyway to read performance counters on OS X Mountain Lion?
Yes. It's there, but difficult to find and clumsy to use (ver.4.5).
- Launch Instruments.
- You are greeted by the Wizard
- Choose "Blank" template for OS X
- Press
cmd+Lto display the Library - Add "Counters" instrument to your Instruments document
- Press
cmd+shf+P-- you are presented with the PM Events floating window. - Let's evaluate "Divide Operations executed" -- Add "Divide Operations executed" to the PM Events window's search field.
- Now set the "State" of "Divide Operations executed" to "Visible"
- Now back to the main document window, press
cmd+Ito display the info popover of the "Counters" instrument. - Press the
+button - Set the new Counter's event to "Divide Operations executed"
- Begin sampling...
- End sampling...
You will see the results in Instruments' table columns. Of course, there are many events you could record -- So find the L1 cache events you are interested in and add them instead of divides.
Also be prepared for system freezes (one happened while writing this up).