Abstract: A system and method for evaluating the performance of a computer program, or software performance evaluation tool. The system comprises an analyzer module for analyzing a binary image of said program and making modifications necessary to measure performance; a kernel for measuring and storing runtime performance information; and a post processor for processing said runtime performance information, correlating it with static information, and displaying resulting information to a user. The analyzer determines boundaries of a plurality of regions and routines within the binary image and inserts breakpoints at the boundaries. The analyzer also examines the binary image of a computer program instruction by instruction in order to instrument and bind the binary image to the kernel module, and uses an abstraction of a target computer in order to instrument the computer program.