Performance Probe

Performance Probe is more than a simple resource-measuring tool. Instead of simply reporting on free memory, free disk space, or other information that can be obtained with other tools like Activity Monitor, Performance Probe measures the impact that various activities may be having on your system. Performance Probe does this by launching several "timing probes" that detect overall system delays.

Some applications, and sometimes the operating system itself, may have bugs or implement "locks" on memory, files on the drive, or even CPU activity that cause system slow downs. These can occur without using excessive memory, drive space, or apparent CPU utilization. If you've ever had your system "bottleneck" on you, and you've opened up Activity Monitor or some other tool and found that memory, drive free space, and CPU utilization weren't unusually high, then Performance Probe may be what you're looking for. Of course, Performance Probe will also report on standard loading problems as well.

Performance Probe is about as easy to use as possible - simply launch the application and monitor system activity. Color bars associated with I/O, memory, and CPU loading and delays make it clear when problems exist. This application provides a quick and easy way to tell if you're system is having some type of performance problems without launching tools that may be difficult to use or provide somewhat complex results. You don't need to be an expert to understand when you're having problems, Performance Probe makes it obvious.

Performance Probe comes with two flavors: Performance Probe and Performance Probe Mini. The standard version allows the user to start and stop performance loading using interface buttons. The mini version has no controls, is much smaller in size, starts sampling immediately after being launched, and stops sampling when the application is closed. Both applications use active icons that update the icon in the dock which shows the degree of loading the system is experiencing even when the application is minimized.