Can't Capture CPU Metrics in VS 2010 Performance Analyzer

Question

I'm using the Performance Analyzer in Visual Studio 2010 and I'm trying to profile CPU Counters such as Last Level Cache Misses, but no matter what I've tried I cannot see the captured counter data in the resulting reports.

Here is my configuration:

• Running VS as Administrator
• The project is set to Debug x64 (also tried Release x64)

General

• Profiling Collection: Instrumentation (also tried 'Sampling')
• Data collection control: enabled

Sampling

• Sample event: Performance counter
• Sampling interval: 1000
• Selected Counter: Portable Events --> Memory Events --> Last Level Cache Misses

CPU Counters

• Collect CPU Counters: enabled
• Selected counters: Portable Events --> Memory Events --> Last Level Cache Misses

I found an article that describes the process (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/profiler/archive/2010/06/22/cpu-performance-counters-in-visual-studio-2010-profiler.aspx), but I can't get the results to show up anywhere. Clearly I am doing something wrong, can any suggest a solution to this problem?

Answer 1

It turns out the system I was using was a Hyper-V instance. Consequently, processor metrics like L2 Cache are not available because it's a virtual environment.