What Does Performance Counter Mean?
A performance counter in .NET programming is a way for developers to get an idea of how their programs are actually performing. Performance counter components are a class in .NET that provides a number of measurable performance metrics. These measure the system state of any given application or part of the Windows operating system.
Techopedia Explains Performance Counter
Performance counters are a form of performance monitoring and debugging tool provided by .NET to aid performance testing of applications. These count a number of actions that both the application and the operating system perform.
These counters include:
- Number of exceptions thrown
- Number of filters per second
- Loading time
- Current classes loaded
- Number of current and logical threads
These and other performance counters should give developers a sense of how their programs are performing in a more systematic way than just loading and interacting with them. A developer typically looks for “hot spots,” places where the program runs more slowly than in others. By seeing where the bottlenecks are in their code, they can tune programs to run more efficiently.