Get started with Arm Performance Studio
Introduction
What is Arm Performance Studio?
Setup tasks
Arm Streamline example capture
Streamline with your application
Performance Advisor example report
Performance Advisor with your application
Frame Advisor
RenderDoc for Arm GPUs
Mali Offline Compiler
Supporting tools
Next Steps

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Installation

  1. Install Arm Performance Studio by following the instructions in the Arm Performance Studio install guide . Details about changes since the last release can be found in the Release Note .
  2. Ensure you have installed Android Debug Bridge (adb) . adb is available with the Android SDK platform tools, which are installed as part of Android Studio. Alternatively, you can download them separately as part of the Android SDK platform tools.
  3. Performance Advisor uses a Python script to connect to your device. To run this script, you will need Python 3.8 or later installed.

Update your PATH environment variable (Linux and macOS)

Edit your PATH environment variable to add the paths to the Streamline and Mali Offline Compiler executables. This is so that you can run Streamline’s Streamline-cli -pa command and Mali Offline Compiler’s malioc command from any directory. This step is not necessary on Windows, as this is done automatically when Arm Performance Studio is installed.

On macOS, edit your /etc/paths file to add the following paths:

    

        
        
/<installation_directory>/streamline
/<installation_directory>/mali_offline_compiler

On Linux, edit your PATH environment variable to add the paths to the Performance Advisor executable. Add this command to the .bashrc file in your home directory, so that this environment variable is set whenever you initialize a shell session.

    

        
        
PATH=$PATH:/<installation_directory>/streamline
PATH=$PATH:/<installation_directory>/mali_offline_compiler

Build your application

The application must be compiled with debug enabled, as well as additional options to facilitate call stack unwinding by Streamline.

  • To set Unity applications to be debuggable, enable Development Build in Build settings.
  • In Android Studio, use a build variant that includes debuggable true (isDebuggable = true in Kotlin scripts) in the build configuration.
  • In Unreal Engine, open Project Settings > Project > Packaging > Project, and ensure that the For Distribution checkbox is not set.
  • For C++ or Java applications, refer to the Target setup guide for Android for instructions on how to compile your application with the right options.
Tip

To assist with readability and add context, you can optionally include annotations in your code, which are then displayed in Streamline.

Set up the Android device

  1. On the device, ensure that Developer Mode is enabled.

  2. Enable USB Debugging under Settings > Developer options. If your device asks you to authorize connection to your computer, confirm the connection.

  3. Connect the device to the host through USB and approve the debug connection on the device when prompted.

  4. To test the connection, run the adb devices command in a command terminal. If successful, this returns the ID of your device:

        

        
        
adb devices
List of devices attached
ce12345abcdf1a1234       device

    If you see that the device is listed as unauthorized, try disabling and re-enabling USB Debugging on the device, and accept the authorization prompt to enable connection to the computer.

  5. Install the debuggable application on the device.

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