Where every number in Pulse by Zaweba comes from
Help, How Pulse measures things explains the source of every figure in Pulse by Zaweba, from Windows' counters to drive sensors and local history.
A system monitor is only as good as your trust in its numbers. Pulse by Zaweba has a page in its Help menu called How Pulse measures things, which explains where each figure comes from. It's short, plain and worth reading once, because knowing the source of a number tells you how to read it.
Processor, memory and disk
CPU, memory and disk figures come from Windows' own process counters, the same information Windows keeps about every running program. Pulse gathers the processes of each program into one row and shows the totals.
That has a practical effect on the disk columns. Because Windows counts file reads and writes per process, work served from Windows' cache still counts. The figure tells you how much file work an app asked for, which is usually what you want when tracking down a busy program.
GPU figures come from Windows' GPU engine counters. For each app Pulse shows the busiest engine it is using. On a PC where Windows offers no GPU counters, the total is left empty rather than shown as zero, so you can tell "not available" from "idle".
Network
Network figures are either live or recorded. Live figures come from Windows event tracing, which Pulse can use once your account has been allowed to through the Live network per app setting. Recorded figures come from Windows' own data-usage records, which lag about a minute and are grouped coarsely. A note bar above the Live table tells you which you're seeing.
Temperatures and sensors
Some temperatures are available to any user. Pulse reads GPU temperatures from the graphics driver, a motherboard reading from the ACPI thermal zone, and NVMe drive temperatures from the drives themselves, all without administrator rights.
CPU temperatures, other motherboard sensors and fans come from the optional sensor helper. It's a second copy of Pulse that runs as administrator when you turn on Sensor readings, reads sensors only and passes them to Pulse every 2 seconds. The help page explains this so you understand why some tiles only appear once the helper is on.
History
Finally, the page makes clear that history is kept only on this PC. Pulse writes its one-minute record to a local file in your user folder, and nothing is sent anywhere. There's no account and no telemetry.
Why this matters when reading numbers
Different sources behave differently, and knowing which is which saves confusion. If two programs show slightly different disk figures, one may count cache reads and the other may not. If a network figure seems a minute behind, it's probably coming from Windows' records rather than live tracing. If a CPU temperature tile is missing, the helper is off.
None of these are faults. They're the honest limits of what Windows lets a normal user read, and Pulse tells you about them rather than filling the gaps with guesses.
When to read it
Open it the first time you use Pulse, or whenever a reading surprises you. It's quicker than searching the web, and it describes Pulse by Zaweba specifically rather than system monitors in general. Most questions of the "why does it say that?" kind are answered there in a sentence or two.
