Vertexbuffer.com

Detecting if memory is the slowest resource of your game is not always easy. First, you must determine if you are GPU or CPU bound. If you game is GPU bound, then optimizing system memory is a waist of your time. If you are CPU bound, a program such as v-tune is helpful.

After you determine that your application is CPU bound, use a combination of visual inspection of code and v-tune to determine if you application is memory limited. V-tune most useful feature is its ability to report where your code is spending most of it’s time. By comparing the clockticks consumed by every function and module will give you a hint to where your code is spending it’s time. By running a sampling and recording cache misses, you will be able to compare clockticks to cache performance. If the time spent in a section of code matches an area that is also the highest area for cache misses, then you have an obvious sign that your application is limited by memory.