Overhead associated with OutputDebugString in release build

Question

Is there a significant overhead associated with calling OutputDebugString in release build?

Answer 1

I had read in an article that OutPutDebugString internally does few interesting things:

1. Creates\Opens mutex and wait infinitely till mutex is acquired.
2. Passes the data between the application and the debugger is done via a 4kbyte chunk of shared memory, with a Mutex and two Event objects protecting access to it.

Even if the debugger is not attached ( in release mode) there is significant cost involved in using OutputDebugstring with the usage of various kernel objects.

Performance hit is very evident if you write a sample code and test.