DotNetKicks.com - Stories tagged with CLR

CLR 4.5: .Net Framework Kernel Improvements

Fri, 04 May 2012 13:46:21 GMT

In this post I'll go through some of the enhancements and improvements done by the CLR team as part of the performance improvements in .Net 4.5. In most cases developers will not have to do anything different to take advantage of the new stuff, it will just works whenever the new framework libraries are used. Topics covered: - Improved Large Object heap Allocator - Background mode for Server GC - Auto NGEN

Max Number of Threads Per Windows Process

Tue, 01 May 2012 14:12:08 GMT

Developers usually thinks that Windows has a default value for the max number of threads a process can hold. while in fact the limitation is due to the amount of address space each thread can have. When you create new thread, it has some memory in the kernel mode, some memory in the user mode, plus its stack, the limiting factor is usually the stack size. The secret behind that is the default stack size is 1MB and the user-mode address space assigned to the windows process under 32 bit Windows OS is about 2 GB. that allow around 2000 thread per process (2000 * 1MB = 2GB).

CLR 4.5: Managed Profile Guided Optimization (MPGO)

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 06:03:31 GMT

The Managed Profile Guided Optimization (MPGO) technology can improve the startup and working set (memory usage) of managed applications by optimizing the layout of precompiled native images.By organize the layout of your native image so most frequently called data are located together in a minimal number of disk pages in order to optimize each request for a disk page of image data to include a higher density of useful image data for the running program which in return will reduce the number of page requests from disk. if you think more about it, mostly it will be useful to machines with mechanical disks but if you have already moved to the Solid State Drive Nirvana the expected performance improvement will probably be unnoticeable.

CLR 4.5: Multicore Just-in-Time (JIT)

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 13:54:16 GMT

.Net 4.5 introduce the concept of Parallel JIT Compilation, where a background thread runs on a separate processor core taking care of the JIT Compilation while the main execution thread running on a different core. In ideal scenario the JIT Compilation thread gets ahead of the main thread execution thread so whenever a method is required it is already Compiled. The question now which methods are required for the startup? in order for the background thread to compile to be ready for a faster startup. That leads us to the new ProfileOptimization type.

TPL Dataflow-An [Extremely Short] Introduction

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:03:55 GMT

As the introductory article in a series on Task Parallel Library Dataflow [TPL Dataflow or TDF], a new feature introduced in .NET 4.5. This article provides a quick introduction to the intent of the series and provides a brief overview of TDF.

10 Questions, 10 Answers on Roslyn -- Visual Studio Magazine

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 13:04:30 GMT

10 questions and answers to help understand the Roslyn complier-as-a-service project for Visual Basic and C# developers.

.NET 4.0 Runtime Superceded by .NET 4.5!

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:59:20 GMT

...Much to my surprise, there was not a .NET 4.5 Framework Directory! After some digging, I discovered that ".NET 4.5 Supercedes .NET 4.0"! This means that the new Runtime replaces the 4.0 runtime.

Anonymous functions and code blocks in PowerShell

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:55:36 GMT

A showcase of some options you have with scoping in PowerShell with code blocks and also a way to use lambda expressions in PowerShell.

.Net Memory Management Explained

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 18:00:56 GMT

Redgate software brings us a storyboard poster which explains .Net memory management in a simple and fun way!

Memory in .NET - (Vagueness Of .NET Memory Management)

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:25:25 GMT

"Variables" are simply storage locations for data becuase it is really hard to pragramme against the memory address. It means, a variable is just an association between a name and memory slot. You can place data into them and retrieve their contents as part of a C# expression. The size of that slot, and the interpretation of the value is controlled through "Types" - and this is where the difference between value types and reference types comes in.....

New preview build of dotPeek available

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:15:19 GMT

A new preview build of the upcoming free .Net decompiler from JetBrains, dotPeek, is available now. This latest build comes with all sorts of neat new features, and makes it usable as a part of your everyday toolbox.

CLR Inside Out: Investigating .NET Memory Issues

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 06:26:46 GMT

Uncovering and correcting memory issues in managed applications can be difficult. Memory issues manifest themselves in different ways. For example, you may observe your application's memory usage growing unboundedly, eventually resulting in an Out Of Memory (OOM) exception. (Your application may even throw out-of-memory exceptions when there is plenty of physical memory available.

Introduction to the Roslyn Scripting API

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 20:31:07 GMT

In this post, Brian Rasmussen takes a look at how the Roslyn Scripting API can enable applications to evaluate code at runtime. While this has been possible since the dawn of .NET through the use of Reflection, Lightweight Code Generation, CodeDom, etc., it has never been particularly easy. All of these mechanisms are either hard to use, require MSIL knowledge, or just have inherent limitations.

PLINQ Queries That Run in Parallel in .NET 4.5 - Parallel Programming

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 15:44:34 GMT

Igor Ostrovsky demonstrates the improvements that have been made to Parallel Extensions in the .NET Framework 4.5, and shows how you can use PLINQ queries to good effect.

Secure Strings - CodeProject

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 17:27:32 GMT

Abhishek Goenka gives a short introduction to the .NET Framework's SecureString class which stores strings in memory in an encrypted form so that the data contained in the strings in memory cannot easily be ready from outside the application.

5 Tips and Techniques for Avoiding Automatic Garbage Collections

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 14:51:31 GMT

We've seen a few articles lately on ensuring that your memory is properly cleaned up during garbage collection, but today Michael McLaughlin comes in with tips to avoid automatic collection of your objects. Generally speaking, this is for performance reasons. Garbage collection in .Net 4 and earlier happens automatically and blocks program execution, which can be disastrous for certain types of applications (games, real-time analysis, etc).

IDisposable and Thread Safety

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 14:15:21 GMT

IDisposable is a standard interface in the .NET framework. This article discusses the importance of using it in parallel or multithread programming.

Is That a WeakReference In Your Gen 2 or Are You Just Glad to See Me?

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 01:28:32 GMT

John Robbins walks us through debugging an application which is not clearing its memory during garbage collection due to WeakReferences. He shows us how to use the tools available to us to trace the memory problem all the way back to the source.

In Managed Code We Trust: Our Recent Battles With the .Net GC

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 20:26:37 GMT

Following up an earlier article this week, Sam Saffron of Stackoverflow expands on how they mitigated performance problems caused by the .Net generational garbage collector.

Visual Studio 11 .NET Advances

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 14:17:33 GMT

S. Somasegar discusses several new features and improved functionality available in the .NET 4.5 Developer Preview. Performance among other things has seen a significant boost in .NET 4.5.

Assault by GC

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 13:12:33 GMT

Well-known .NET developer Marc Gravell details how he eliminated some performance problems through clever use of structures, and explains how the CLR garbage collector behaves.

Memory Allocation Improvements in .Net 4.5

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 18:51:56 GMT

Surupa Biswas and Maoni Stephens from the Garbage Collection Feature Team at Microsoft share with us some improvements to memory allocation in .Net 4.5, specifically relating to large object allocation. Improvements have been made to how fragmented memory is allocated and used on the heap, as well as balancing large object allocation between heaps when in server GC mode. The latter improvement has seen significant performance gains.

.NET 4.5 Framework: Backwards compatibility and you

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 15:20:14 GMT

Brandon Bray gives us some information on backwards compatibility with the upcoming .NET Framework 4.5. This next version of the framework will not be a side-by-side installation like previous releases, but will instead replace version 4 when installed on a users machine. The goal is to be fully backwards compatible with version 4, but the possibility for breakage exists.

Windows 8: What's New? - Arik Poznanski's Blog

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 21:25:33 GMT

Got back from Build conference. Since I expect many people will ask me "So, what's new?" and since the answer is rather complex, I figured I should try to write a post about it, so here goes.

WinRT Demystified

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 23:34:54 GMT

Miguel de Icaza, of Mono fame, walks us through WinRT and what it means for .Net programmers.