Instruments Preferences

Always use deferred mode

Collects trace data in deferred mode. This delays analysis of the data until the end of the recording.

Suppress template chooser

Instruments displays a trace document when opened or a new instance is created.

Save current run only

Saves only the current run of data for each instrument.

Compress run data

Saves run data in zip format.

Default document location

Determines the default location for data storage.

Global Keyboard Shortcuts

Sets a keyboard shortcut for starting the time profiling instrument.

Hardware Multi-Threading

Lets active cores execute more than one execution unit.

Core slider

Sets the number of active cores used by Instruments to record data.

Enforce initial deck height

All instruments start at their default height.

Sort process lists by identifier

Sorts process lists by their identifier instead of alphabetically.

Always snap track to fit at end of run

Fits all collected data into the current track width.

Buffer size (megabytes)

Sets the size of the DTrace kernal buffer. Defaults to 25 MB.

Max backtrace depth

Sets the maximum stack depth to capture for DTrace instruments. Defaults to a depth of 128.

Permit zero match probes.

Avoids an error condition if a probe can not be found.

Preserve intermediate files

Prevents Instruments from removing intermediate files from the disk.

Flag runtime messages

Automatically flags any error or status messages.

Automatic Time Profiling

Automatically performs time profiling on any spinning processes.

Sampling interval

Sets how often sampling is performed. Defaults to 1 millisecond.

Sampling duration

Sets how long the sampling process lasts. Defaults to 5 seconds.