RedProfiler

- Introduction -

Every modded install has a mod that eats more frame than it should, and until now the only way to find it was to disable things one at a time and guess. RedProfiler is a RED4ext plugin that measures the scripts themselves: how many milliseconds each mod, each file and each function spend inside the RedScript VM per frame, and the same for every Cyber Engine Tweaks mod's Lua. It also counts what they allocate, catches the frames that spike and names who was running when it happened.

One hook sits on the function every script body runs through, so the coverage is complete rather than sampled or guessed at, and the hook itself costs well under a tenth of a millisecond a frame. Start a capture, play for a minute, stop it, and you have a ranked list in a window and a folder of CSV files you can sort in a spreadsheet.

TL;DR - Which mod is eating your frames? Now you know. (ㆆ _ ㆆ)

- What it measures -

• []RedScript time per mod, per file and per function: exclusive (the function's own body), inclusive (its callees too), calls, calls per frame, worst single call, and how the time splits between the main thread and the worker threads.[/]

  []Cyber Engine Tweaks time per mod, per file and per function, shown as one CET mod that drills into cet: rows. CET is not required; when it is present its mods are simply in the list.[/]

  []Spikes: the worst frames by script time, each with the entries that ran during it. Session load, a mod's OnAttach, a burst on a worker thread: it says which.[/]

  []Memory: objects and arrays created per function, bytes of churn, Lua bytes allocated and freed per CET function, and net objects: what a function created that is still alive. A net that keeps climbing is a leak. A CLASSES view does the same per RTTI class.[/]

  []Lua garbage collector steps and their time, and the Lua heap size.[/]

  []Native call breakdown (optional, off by default): which engine calls a script function spends its time in.[/]

  Vanilla scripts are measured too and shown as one mod, Vanilla, so a mod's cost has something to be compared against.

  - Using it -

  Nothing is measured until you ask. Bind the Start / Stop hotkey in the RedProfiler page of the RCF hub, or use its START and STOP buttons, and capture the moment you care about: a fight, a district, a menu. A capture writes its CSV files when it stops. Turn on Capture Every Session and it runs on its own from the moment the game is running to the moment you leave.

  With RedWindows installed the dock gets a PROFILER button. The window updates every half second, stays pinned while you play, and has six pages: MODS, FILES, FUNCTIONS, SPIKES, MEMORY and STATUS. Click a mod for its files, a file for its functions, a header to sort by that column, BACK to go up. Checkboxes decide whether Vanilla, RedScript mods and CET mods are listed, and whether each group collapses into a single row so the whole set compares at a glance. A filter field narrows everything to the mods you name, CSV files included.

  Every capture lands in red4ext\plugins\RedProfiler\captures\<timestamp>\: summary.txt, mods.csv, files.csv, functions.csv, frames.csv, spikes.csv, memory.csv, memory_classes.csv, timeline.csv, plus cet_mods.csv and cet_functions.csv when CET is present and natives.csv when the native breakdown is on. Times are in milliseconds with three decimals. timeline.csv is a once-a-second log of created, destroyed and alive objects per mod; a leak shows up as a line that only goes up.

  Options live in red4ext\plugins\RedProfiler\settings.txt and in the RCF page, which edits the same file: capture every session, write CSV on stop, spike threshold, memory profiling, native breakdown, the include and collapse switches, the mod filter, and how many rows the window lists.

  Mod Organizer 2 users: the captures and the settings file appear in your overwrite folder, like every file a plugin writes at runtime.

  - Reading the numbers -

  Exclusive time is what a function's own code costs. Inclusive adds everything it called. Ranking by exclusive finds the function to fix; ranking by inclusive finds the feature to blame. Calls per frame separates a heavy function from a cheap one called ten thousand times, which is the more common problem.

  Time spent inside engine calls made by a script counts as that script's exclusive time. The native breakdown option separates it when you need to know which call.

  Worker-thread time is re