Re: [Intel IOMMU 00/10] Intel IOMMU support, take #2

From: Andi Kleen
Date: Tue Jun 26 2007 - 11:37:13 EST


On Tue, Jun 26, 2007 at 11:09:40AM -0400, Muli Ben-Yehuda wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 26, 2007 at 05:56:49PM +0200, Andi Kleen wrote:
>
> > > > - The IOMMU can merge sg lists into a single virtual block. This could
> > > > potentially speed up SG IO when the device is slow walking SG
> > > > lists. [I long ago benchmarked 5% on some block benchmark with
> > > > an old MPT Fusion; but it probably depends a lot on the HBA]
> > >
> > > But most devices are SG-capable.
> >
> > Your point being?
>
> That the fact that an IOMMU can do SG for non-SG-capble cards is not
> interesting from a "reason for inclusion" POV.

You misunderstood me; my point was that some SG capable devices
can go faster if they get shorter SG lists.

But yes for non SG capable devices it is also interesting. I expect
it will obsolete most users of that ugly external patch to allocate large
memory areas for IOs. That's a point I didn't mention earlier.

> > Also the user interface for X server case needs more work.
>
> Is anyone working on it?

It's somewhere on the todo list.


-Andi
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