How do you measure the performance of an application

Question

I would like to install a twitter client on an older machine in my office. I would like install one that is the least resource intensive. My question is, how should I measure the performance of an application.

It is simple to see how much disk space it takes up. But how do I measure how much ram, processor time, and network resources is uses while in normal opperation?

Answer 1

The program should tell you it's requirements, if not, if you have Windows you can try the good ol' task manager (under "Processes" tab, look at "Mem Usage" column) after install to see how much memory the application is taking up. You can also use this juiced up Task Manager called Process Explorer. It pretty much breaks down every application and system process on your system.

Answer 2

Windows has a built in performance monitor called, Performance Monitor. You can set it up such that for specific processes or programs, e.g. myTwitterClient.exe, it'll keep a measure. It has options to measure processor time, memory usage, network sent, network received, and lots more :)

I think applications can register their own special counters too, but all processes should be accessible for measure (it's been a while since I used it).