DotNetStress

• Download demo project - 99 Kb

Introduction

The download is a simple .NET stress tester.  The user can ask for managed or unmanaged execution and watch the runtime’s response.  The app. is targeted at the .NET beginner or intermediate that wants a glimpse under the hood.

Background (very skip-able)

At work I’m involved in our companies transition to .NET.  Their asking me and a number of others to teach this new platform (and I’ve only been coding in C# 1 year).  Their are some who are struggling - mostly the VB 6 crowd.  Anyway, this app. is an attempt to help such coders.

The Application

A screen shot of the app. and the Performance monitor in action are shown below. The button clicks taken, here, were “Add Objs” and “Clean Up”.

So one can request a number of unmanaged COM objects (TAPI was chosen).  Or one can request a number of managed objects (array of strings).  I added “Add Mem” in case one has gigantic memory (as I do at work).  The Performance monitor is perfect for watching the results.  Of course with this tool there are many candidates for observation.  As far as .NET the following MSDN path may help in choosing.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpgenref/html/gngrfperformancecounters.asp

A Warning

The point of the app. is to strain .NET and, hence, your machine.  But let me say that one can push too hard.  At work I dropped Visual Studio and Windows 2000 got buggy (I’m assuming its MS memory management and not that there’s some bug).  At home, I’ve had to reboot a number of times.  You should start with small numbers.  Get a feel for what your machine can take and then push on.

Be especially careful with the “Array Count” value.  In the code I’m adding 100,000 to make the strings take up more memory.

Conclusion

There are other details but I hope between the UI and the source that these are apparent.  If you play with the app. may you enjoy - but if not, feel free to respond.  I am new to this publishing thing and would welcome your comments.