Re: [RFC] syscall calling convention, stts/clts, and xstate latency

[Ingo Molnar]

* Andrew Lutomirski <luto@xxxxxxx> wrote:

> On Mon, Jul 25, 2011 at 2:38 AM, Ingo Molnar <mingo@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > * Andrew Lutomirski <luto@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> >> On Sun, Jul 24, 2011 at 5:15 PM, Ingo Molnar <mingo@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > * Andrew Lutomirski <luto@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> I was trying to understand the FPU/xstate saving code, and I ran
> >> >> some benchmarks with surprising results.  These are all on Sandy
> >> >> Bridge i7-2600.  Please take all numbers with a grain of salt --
> >> >> they're in tight-ish loops and don't really take into account
> >> >> real-world cache effects.
> >> >>
> >> >> A clts/stts pair takes about 80 ns.  Accessing extended state from
> >> >> userspace with TS set takes 239 ns.  A kernel_fpu_begin /
> >> >> kernel_fpu_end pair with no userspace xstate access takes 80 ns
> >> >> (presumably 79 of those 80 are the clts/stts).  (Note: The numbers
> >> >> in this paragraph were measured using a hacked-up kernel and KVM.)
> >> >>
> >> >> With nonzero ymm state, xsave + clflush (on the first cacheline of
> >> >> xstate) + xrstor takes 128 ns.  With hot cache, xsave = 24ns,
> >> >> xsaveopt (with unchanged state) = 16 ns, and xrstor = 40 ns.
> >> >>
> >> >> With nonzero xmm state but zero ymm state, xsave+xrstor drops to 38
> >> >> ns and xsaveopt saves another 5 ns.
> >> >>
> >> >> Zeroing the state completely with vzeroall adds 2 ns.  Not sure
> >> >> what's going on.
> >> >>
> >> >> All of this makes me think that, at least on Sandy Bridge, lazy
> >> >> xstate saving is a bad optimization -- if the cache is being nice,
> >> >> save/restore is faster than twiddling the TS bit.  And the cost of
> >> >> the trap when TS is set blows everything else away.
> >> >
> >> > Interesting. Mind cooking up a delazying patch and measure it on
> >> > native as well? KVM generally makes exceptions more expensive, so the
> >> > effect of lazy exceptions might be less on native.
> >>
> >> Using the same patch on native, I get:
> >>
> >> kernel_fpu_begin/kernel_fpu_end (no userspace xstate): 71.53 ns
> >> stts/clts: 73 ns (clearly there's a bit of error here) userspace
> >> xstate with TS set: 229 ns
> >>
> >> So virtualization adds only a little bit of overhead.
> >
> > KVM rocks.
> >
> >> This isn't really a delazying patch -- it's two arch_prctls, one of
> >> them is kernel_fpu_begin();kernel_fpu_end().  The other is the same
> >> thing in a loop.
> >>
> >> The other numbers were already native since I measured them
> >> entirely in userspace.  They look the same after rebooting.
> >
> > I should have mentioned it earlier, but there's a certain amount of
> > delazying patches in the tip:x86/xsave branch:
> >
> >  $ gll linus..x86/xsave
> >  300c6120b465: x86, xsave: fix non-lazy allocation of the xsave area
> >  f79018f2daa9: Merge branch 'x86/urgent' into x86/xsave
> >  66beba27e8b5: x86, xsave: remove lazy allocation of xstate area
> >  1039b306b1c6: x86, xsave: add kernel support for AMDs Lightweight Profiling (LWP)
> >  4182a4d68bac: x86, xsave: add support for non-lazy xstates
> >  324cbb83e215: x86, xsave: more cleanups
> >  2efd67935eb7: x86, xsave: remove unused code
> >  0c11e6f1aed1: x86, xsave: cleanup fpu/xsave signal frame setup
> >  7f4f0a56a7d3: x86, xsave: rework fpu/xsave support
> >  26bce4e4c56f: x86, xsave: cleanup fpu/xsave support
> >
> > it's not in tip:master because the LWP bits need (much) more work to
> > be palatable - but we could spin them off and complete them as per
> > your suggestions if they are an independent speedup on modern CPUs.
> 
> Hans, what's the status of these?  I want to do some other cleanups
> (now or in a couple of weeks) that will probably conflict with your
> xsave work.

if you extract this bit:

     1039b306b1c6: x86, xsave: add kernel support for AMDs Lightweight Profiling (LWP)

then we can keep all the other patches.

this could be done by:

  git reset --hard 4182a4d68bac   # careful, this zaps your current dirty state
  git cherry-pick 66beba27e8b5
  git cherry-pick 300c6120b465

Thanks,

	Ingo
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