Setting up the Project for Performance Estimation

To create a project and use the Estimate Performance option in a build configuration:

  1. Create a new project in the SDx™ IDE 2017.1 (lab2) for theZC702platform andStandaloneas System configuration using the design template forMatrix Multiplication and Addition.
  2. Click on the tab labeledlab2to view theSDx Project Settings. If the tab is not visible, in theProject Explorerdouble click on theproject.sdxfile under thelab2project.
  3. In theHW Functionspanel, observe that themaddandmmultfunctions already appear in the list of functions marked for hardware – template projects in the SDx environment include information for automating the process of marking hardware functions.
  4. If theHW Functionspanel did not list any functions, you would click on theAdd HW Functioniconto invoke a dialog for specifying hardware functions. Ctrl-click (press the Ctrl key and left click simultaneously) on themaddandmmultfunctions in theMatching elements:list and notice that they appear in theQualified name and location:list.
  5. Performance estimation can be run using any build configuration. Instead of selectingDebugorReleaseas the Active Configuration, you could instead click on theManage build configuration for the projecticon next to the active configuration.
  6. You can choose an available configuration or you can create a new configuration. New configuration can be created from an existing configuration (as a starting point) or it can be created from scratch. Using the Debug build configuration or another build configuration copied from Debug will compile the code with-O0using GCC, so the software performance will be significantly degraded. For this lab we will use theDebugconfiguration.
  7. In theSDx Project Settingsin theOptionspanel, check theEstimate Performancebox. This enables the estimation flow.
  8. TheBuildtoolbar button provides a drop-down menu for selecting the build configuration and building the project. Clicking theBuildicon builds the project. If theEstimate Performanceoption is checked, then performance estimation also occurs. Click theBuildbutton on the toolbar.

    The SDx IDE builds the project. A dialog box displaying the status of the build process appears.

    After the build is over, you can see an initial report. This report contains a hardware-only estimate summary and has a link that can be clicked to obtain the software run data, which updates the report with comparison of hardware implementation versus the software-only information.