Add GDQuest profiler page

tutorials/performance/general_optimization.rst

@@ -128,7 +128,7 @@ of your improvements. Sometimes, attempts to improve performance can backfire
 and lead to slower performance.
 **Always use profiling and timing to guide your efforts.**
 
-For more info about using Godot's built-in profiler, see :ref:`doc_debugger_panel`.
+For more info about using Godot's built-in profiler, see :ref:`doc_the_profiler`.
 
 Principles
 ==========

tutorials/scripting/debug/debugger_panel.rst

@@ -48,32 +48,9 @@ You can disable specific warnings in **Project Settings > Debug > GDScript**.
 Profiler
 ++++++++
 
-The debugger comes with three profilers for your processor, network operations,
-and video memory.
-
-The profiler is used to show why individual frames take as long as they do
-to process and render.
-
-Unlike other debugging tools, the profiler does not start automatically. It can
-be started at any time during gameplay by pressing the start button. You can
-even start the profiler before opening the game to profile startup performance.
-It can also be started and stopped while the game is running without losing
-information from when it was last running. The information it records won't
-go away unless you click clear, or close the game, reopen it and start
-the profiler again.
-
-After starting and stopping the profiler, you should see things being kept track
-of on the left and a graph on the right. The items listed on the left are
-everything that contributes to frame time, and they should each have a value
-for time and calls for the current frame you are looking at.
-
-The frame number in the top right tells you which frame you are currently
-looking at. You can change this by using the up or down arrows, typing in the
-frame number, or clicking on the graph.
-
-If you want to add something to your graph or think it looks too cluttered,
-you can check and uncheck the box next to an item to add or remove it
-from the graph.
+The profiler is used to see what code is running while your project is in use,
+and how that effects performance. A detailed explanation of how to use it can
+be found :ref:`here <doc_the_profiler>`.
 
 Network Profiler
 ++++++++++++++++

tutorials/scripting/debug/index.rst

@@ -7,3 +7,4 @@ Debug
 
    overview_of_debugging_tools
    debugger_panel
+   the_profiler

tutorials/scripting/debug/the_profiler.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,157 @@
+.. _doc_the_profiler:
+
+The Profiler
+============
+
+You run your game from Godot and play around. It's fun, it's becoming feature
+complete, and you feel it's getting close to release.
+
+But then, you open the skill tree, and it grinds to a halt as something snags
+in your code. Watching the skill tree scroll by like it's a slide show is
+unacceptable. What went wrong? Is it positioning the skill tree elements, the
+UI, or rendering?
+
+You could try to optimize everything and running the game again and again, but
+you can be smarter about this and narrow down the possibilities. Enter Godot's
+profiler.
+
+An overview of the profiler
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+
+You can open the profiler by opening the **Debugger** panel and clicking on the
+**Profiler** tab.
+
+..image:: img/profiler.png
+
+Godot's profiler does not run automatically because profiling is
+performance-intensive. It has to continually measure everything happening in
+the game and report back to the debugger, so it's off by default.
+
+To begin profiling, click on the **Start** button in the top-left. Run your game
+and data will start appearing. You can also start profiling at any time before
+or during gameplay, depending on if you want.
+
+You can clear the data by clicking the **Clear** button anytime. Use the **Measure**
+drop-down menu to change the type of data you measure. The measurements panel
+and the graph will update accordingly.
+
+The measured data
++++++++++++++++++
+
+The profiler's interface is split into two. There is a list of functions on the
+left and the performance graph on the right.
+
+The main measurements are frame time, physics time, idle time, and physics time.
+
+- The **frame time** is the time it takes Godot to execute all the logic for an
+  entire image, from physics to rendering.
+- **Physics frame** is the time Godot has allocated between physics updates. In
+  an ideal scenario, the frame time is whatever you chose: 16.66 milliseconds
+  by default, which corresponds to 60FPS. It's a frame of reference you can use
+  for everything else around it.
+- **Idle time** is the time Godot took to update logic other than physics, such as
+  code that lives in `_process` or timers and cameras set to update on **Idle**.
+- **Physics time** is the time Godot took to update physics tasks, like
+  `_physics_process` and built-in nodes set to **Physics** update.
+
+
+.. note:: In Godot 3, **Frame Time** includes rendering time. Say you find a
+          mysterious spike of lag in your game, but your physics and scripts
+          are all running fast. The delay could be due to the appearance of
+          particles or visual effects!
+
+By default, Godot ticks on Frame Time and Physics Time. This gives you an overview
+of how long each frame takes relative to the allocated desired physics FPS. You can
+toggle functions on and off by clicking the checkboxes on the left. Other facilities
+make appearances as you go down the list, like Physics 2D, Physics, and Audio,
+before reaching Script functions, where your code appears.
+
+If you click on the graph, you change which frame's information appears on the left.
+In the top right, there is also a frame counter where you can manually adjust the
+frame you are looking at more granularly.
+
+Scope of measurement and measurement windows
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+
+You can change what measurement you are looking at using the **Measure** drop-down
+menu. By default, it starts with Frame Time and lists the time it takes to go through
+the frame in milliseconds. The average time is the average time any given function
+took when called more than once. For example, a function that took 0.05 milliseconds
+to run five times should give you an average of 0.01 milliseconds.
+
+If accurate milliseconds count are not important, and you want to see proportions of
+time relative to the rest of the frame, use percentage measurements. Frame % is
+relative to Frame Time, and Physics % is relative to Physics Time.
+
+The last option is the scope of the time. **Inclusive** measures the time a function
+took **with** any nested function calls. For example:
+
+..image:: img/split_curve.png
+
+`get_neighbors`, `find_nearest_neighbor` and `move_subject` all took a lot of time.
+You could be fooled into thinking that this is because all three of them are slow.
+
+But when changed to **Self**, Godot measures the time spent in the function body without
+considering function calls it made itself.
+
+..image:: img/self_curve.png
+
+You can see that `get_neighbors` and `move_subject` have lost a lot of their
+importance. In effect, that means that `get_neighbors` and `move_subject` have spent
+more time waiting for some other function call to finish than not, and
+`find_nearest_neighbor` is **actually** slow.
+
+Debugging slow code with the profiler
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+
+Finding slow code with the profiler boils down to running your game and watching the
+performance graph as it draws. When an unacceptable spike occurs in the frame time,
+you can click on the graph to pause your game and narrow the _Frame #_ to the start
+of the spike. You may need to jump back and forth between frames and functions to
+find the root cause.
+
+Under the Script functions, turn on the checkboxes for some functions to find which
+take time. These are the functions you need to review and optimize.
+
+Measuring manually in microseconds
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+
+If your function is complex, it could be challenging to figure out which part needs
+optimization. Is it your math or the way you access other pieces of data to do the
+math with? Is it the `for` loop? The `if` statements?
+
+You can narrow down the measurement by manually counting ticks as the code runs with
+some temporary functions. The two functions are part of the `OS` class object. They
+are `get_ticks_msec` and `get_ticks_usec`. The first measures in milliseconds (1,000
+per second) and the second measures in microseconds (1,000,000 per second).
+
+Either one returns the amount of time since the game started in their respective time
+frame. This comes directly from the operating system rather than Godot.
+
+If you wrap a piece of code with a start and end count of microseconds, the difference
+between the two is the amount of time it took to run that piece of code.
+
+.. tabs::
+ .. code-tab:: gdscript GDScript
+
+    # Measuring the time it takes for worker_function() to run
+    var start = OS.get_ticks_usec()
+    worker_function()
+    var end = OS.get_ticks_usec()
+    var worker_time = (end-start)/1000000.0
+
+    # Measuring the time spent running a calculation over each element of an array
+    start = OS.get_ticks_usec()
+    for calc in calculations:
+        result = pow(2, calc.power) * calc.product
+    end = OS.get_ticks_usec()
+    var loop_time = (end-start)/1000000.0
+
+    print("Worker time: %s\nLoop time: %s" % [worker_time, loop_time])
+
+As you become a more experienced programmer, this technique becomes less necessary.You
+begin to learn what parts of a running program are slow. Knowing that loops and branches
+can be slow comes from experience, and you gain experience by measuring and doing research.
+
+But between the profiler and the ticks functions, you should have enough to get started
+finding which parts of your code need optimization.