From Forum Nokia Wiki

Developers have several options to profile application behavior with timers. Each of these options have advantages and disadvantages.

Contents 1 TTime::UniversalTime() 2 User::FastCounter() 3 User::NTickCount() / NKern::TickCount() 4 Example code

TTime::UniversalTime()

• Resolution is in the microseconds range (on EKA2).
• This timer uses the system time that can be changed by other programs
• Tick period can be obtained by calling

TInt tickPeriod;
HAL::Get(HAL::ENanoTickPeriod, tickPeriod);

User::FastCounter()

• Highest possible resolution of a Symbian OS timer
• Faster than TTime::UniversalTime()
• Tick period can be obtained by calling

TInt tickPeriod;
HAL::Get(HALData::EFastCounterFrequency, tickPeriod);

User::NTickCount() / NKern::TickCount()

• Allows access to kernel tick count directly (user and kernel side)
• does not lose time when device goes into standby
• Tick period can be obtained by calling

HAL::Get(HAL::ENanoTickPeriod, tickPeriod); // User side
// or
TInt tickPeriod = NKern::TickPeriod() // Kernel side

Example code

This sample illustrates a way to calculate the time elapsed between two calls using TTime::UniversalTime().

...
TReal iFps; // frame per seconds
TTime iOldTime;
...
void CMyActiveObject::RunL()
	{
	TTime time;
	time.UniversalTime();
	// You may need to make sure that time counter is incremented 
        // to avoid division by zero
	iFps = 1000000 / time.MicroSecondsFrom( iOldTime ).Int64();
	iOldTime = time;
	}