Charting Current Activity

Customized charts that monitor the current performance of selected counters and instances are useful when:

investigating why a computer or application is slow or inefficient.

continuously monitoring systems to find intermittent performance problems.

discovering why you need to increase capacity.

For specific instructions on using the chart view, opening an existing chart settings file, and creating a new blank chart, see the "Working with Charts" topic in Performance Monitor Help.

Adding Counters to a Chart

Different graphs require different settings. Creating charts to reflect these different requirements is a simple matter of selecting the computer to be monitored and adding the appropriate objects, counters, and instances. You can then save these selections under a filename for viewing whenever you want an update on their performance.

To enhance the readability of graphs, vary the scale of the displayed information and the color, width, and style of the line for each counter as you add it to the chart. You can also modify these properties after you add a selection.

The following table shows which options can be changed by editing the chart line:

Option	Description

Color	Use colors to distinguish lines in a graph from each other.
Scale	Change the scale at which the information is displayed. The numbers shown in the value bar are not scaled.
Width	Make the line thicker or thinner. Thick lines, however, cannot be styled. This is especially useful to distinguish a line in a graph when it will be printed or displayed in black and white.
Style	Make a graph line dashed or dotted. This only works on the thinnest lines.

You can change the scale of any displayed value to make it easier to see in a chart or to allow you to compare it with another value. The scale factor is applied to all currently selected counters. The factor displayed is multiplied by the counter value, and the product is charted. However, that the value bar continues to show the actual value, not the scaled value.

You can also change the vertical maximum on a graph to make very large or small values noticeable. This often reveals details of a curve that are hidden when the line is compressed on one axis.

Highlighting changes the line selected in a Performance Monitor chart legend to a thick white line for easy viewing. As you scroll through the legend the highlight moves with you. To toggle highlighting on and off, press CTRL+H.

For specific instructions on adding selections to a chart and saving chart selections in a settings file, see the "Adding Chart Selections" topic in Performance Monitor Help.

For specific instructions on changing how a selected counter is represented on the chart, see the "Changing Chart Selections" topic in Performance Monitor Help.

Using Chart Options

By using Chart Options you can customize your charts and change the method used for updating the chart values. Click Chart on the Options menu, or click the Options button on the toolbar to see the Chart Options dialog box. From here you can:

Choose whether to display or hide horizontal and vertical grid lines, vertical labels, the value bar, and the legend and legend-information area.

Change the vertical maximum value of the displayed graph labels and the time interval used for graphing the information from the counters. The chosen graph-time interval is reflected in the value bar, which also displays the last, average, minimum, and maximum values for the data visible on the chart.

Change the display from a line graph to a histogram. This is useful for viewing the behavior of many instances of the same object.

For specific instructions on how to change chart options, see the "Changing the Chart Options" topic in Performance Monitor Help.