Sluggish debugger in VS2005

[Staffan Langin]

Hello,

I've problem with really sluggish performance when stepping through native
C++ code, which contains non-trivial templates, with the VS2005 debugger. It
seems that the problem stems from the updating of the variables in the
debugger. If I expand a variable in the debugger, the step-time increases,
proportionally to the complexity of the expanded class hierarchy. Expanding
a couple of variables, with a heritance hierarchy of about 5 levels,
results in a step-time of 20-30 seconds, which leads to a very frustrating
experience. Is there a solution to this problem?

Best Regards,

Staffan Langin

[John Dallman]

Post by Staffan Langin
I've problem with really sluggish performance when stepping through
native C++ code, which contains non-trivial templates, with the
VS2005 debugger. It seems that the problem stems from the updating of
the variables in the debugger. If I expand a variable in the
debugger, the step-time increases, proportionally to the complexity
of the expanded class hierarchy. Expanding a couple of variables,
with a heritance hierarchy of about 5 levels, results in a step-time
of 20-30 seconds, which leads to a very frustrating experience. Is
there a solution to this problem?

Sounds like a problem for better hardware. The interesting question is
if it's general CPU speed or a graphics card speed problem: Visual
Studio's displays sometimes seem to work in ways of their own. What's
the current hardware? Do you have anything faster to try it on?

The thing to hope for is that it's something bad about the combination
of your graphics card and Visual Studio, because fixing that could give
you big speed-ups. If it's CPU power, the possibilities are less
dramatic.

Assuming you're on XP, try switching to the Classic windows look and
setting Control Panel=>System=>Advanced=>Performance to "Adjust for best
performance".

[Staffan Langin]

Post by John Dallman

Post by Staffan Langin
I've problem with really sluggish performance when stepping through
native C++ code, which contains non-trivial templates, with the
VS2005 debugger. It seems that the problem stems from the updating of
the variables in the debugger. If I expand a variable in the
debugger, the step-time increases, proportionally to the complexity
of the expanded class hierarchy. Expanding a couple of variables,
with a heritance hierarchy of about 5 levels, results in a step-time
of 20-30 seconds, which leads to a very frustrating experience. Is
there a solution to this problem?

Sounds like a problem for better hardware. The interesting question is
if it's general CPU speed or a graphics card speed problem: Visual
Studio's displays sometimes seem to work in ways of their own. What's
the current hardware? Do you have anything faster to try it on?
The thing to hope for is that it's something bad about the combination
of your graphics card and Visual Studio, because fixing that could give
you big speed-ups. If it's CPU power, the possibilities are less
dramatic.
Assuming you're on XP, try switching to the Classic windows look and
setting Control Panel=>System=>Advanced=>Performance to "Adjust for best
performance".

My current setup consists of an Athlon X2 4800+, ATI X1650 256MB, 2BG Ram
and the componets are working at full speed. I'm not experiencing any
slowdowns in the debugger as long as I'm not debugging templated code, hence
I'm quite confident the problem is related to the conditions I mentioned in
my OP.

[David Lowndes]

Post by Staffan Langin
I've problem with really sluggish performance when stepping through native
C++ code, which contains non-trivial templates, with the VS2005 debugger. It
seems that the problem stems from the updating of the variables in the
debugger. If I expand a variable in the debugger, the step-time increases,
proportionally to the complexity of the expanded class hierarchy. Expanding
a couple of variables, with a heritance hierarchy of about 5 levels,
results in a step-time of 20-30 seconds, which leads to a very frustrating
experience. Is there a solution to this problem?

That seems an incredibly long delay.

You've not got the mixed (native and managed) debugging set perhaps?
That slows things down a bit.

Are you debugging locally or remotely? I've found remote debugging can
be slow (but I've not seen it that slow) if I have the call stack
window showing.

Dave

[Staffan Langin]

Post by David Lowndes

Post by Staffan Langin
I've problem with really sluggish performance when stepping through native
C++ code, which contains non-trivial templates, with the VS2005 debugger. It
seems that the problem stems from the updating of the variables in the
debugger. If I expand a variable in the debugger, the step-time increases,
proportionally to the complexity of the expanded class hierarchy. Expanding
a couple of variables, with a heritance hierarchy of about 5 levels,
results in a step-time of 20-30 seconds, which leads to a very frustrating
experience. Is there a solution to this problem?

That seems an incredibly long delay.
You've not got the mixed (native and managed) debugging set perhaps?
That slows things down a bit.
Are you debugging locally or remotely? I've found remote debugging can
be slow (but I've not seen it that slow) if I have the call stack
window showing.

I'm debugging locally and it's a pure native application. I have the call
stack visible in one of the debug-windows. I'll try hiding it to test if
that change anything.