tinymembench

What tinymembench is

tinymembench is a free command-line program for measuring memory performance on Linux, Windows, and Android. It measures peak bandwidth during sequential memory access and latency during random memory access, and its workload areas also include framebuffer read performance. For bandwidth measurements, it runs different assembly code on aligned memory blocks and tries different prefetch strategies.

The public repository provides source code and a Makefile under the MIT License. Linux and Windows builds can be made with make; Windows builds use mingw32 and msys. Linux users can pass compiler optimization options through CFLAGS when running make. The README gives examples of cross-compiling for ARM on Linux with an ARM GNU compiler, and of building a static Android binary, transferring it to a device with adb, and running it there. A wiki page linked from the README contains benchmark results for some hardware. The repository includes an Issues section for project discussions and issue reports. GitHub identifies Siarhiej Siamaška as the maintainer. The MIT license provides the software “AS IS” without warranty of any kind.

Who it suits

tinymembench suits people who want a command-line tool to measure memory bandwidth or latency on Linux, Windows, or Android. It is also relevant to developers who want source code and build examples for ARM or Android.

Limits

The software is provided under the MIT License “AS IS” without warranty of any kind.

Getting started

1. Open the tinymembench GitHub repository.
2. For Linux or Windows, build the program by running make; Windows builds use mingw32 and msys.
3. On Linux, optionally supply compiler optimization settings through CFLAGS when running make.
4. For ARM on Linux, follow the README's cross-compilation example using an ARM GNU compiler.
5. For Android, build the static binary, push it to a device with adb, and run it there.

Verdict

Choose tinymembench if you need a free command-line memory benchmark and are comfortable building or running command-line software. Look elsewhere if you require warranty coverage or a graphical interface.