[PATCH] perf_event use rdpmc rather than rdmsr when possible inkernel

From: Vince Weaver
Date: Thu Mar 01 2012 - 17:41:57 EST


Hello

The rdpmc instruction is faster than the equivelant rdmsr call,
so use it when possible in the kernel.

The perfctr kernel patches did this, after extensive testing showed
rdpmc to always be faster (One can look in etc/costs in the perfctr-2.6
package to see a historical list of the overhead).

I have done some tests on a 3.2 kernel, the kernel module I used
was included in the first posting of this patch:

rdmsr rdpmc
Core2 T9900: 203.9 cycles 30.9 cycles
AMD fam0fh: 56.2 cycles 9.8 cycles
Atom 6/28/2: 129.7 cycles 50.6 cycles

The speedup of using rdpmc is large, although granted
it really is a drop in the bucket compared to the other overheads
involved.

It's probably possible (and desirable) to do this without
requiring a new field in the hw_perf_event structure, but the fixed events
make this tricky.

Changes since the last version: properly use the "rdpmc" macro,
make event_base_rdpmc an int rather than unsigned long

Signed-off-by: Vince Weaver <vweaver1@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

diff --git a/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/perf_event.c b/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/perf_event.c
index 5adce10..e1ddfc7 100644
--- a/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/perf_event.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/perf_event.c
@@ -70,6 +70,7 @@ u64 x86_perf_event_update(struct perf_event *event)
struct hw_perf_event *hwc = &event->hw;
int shift = 64 - x86_pmu.cntval_bits;
u64 prev_raw_count, new_raw_count;
+ u32 high, low;
int idx = hwc->idx;
s64 delta;

@@ -85,7 +86,8 @@ u64 x86_perf_event_update(struct perf_event *event)
*/
again:
prev_raw_count = local64_read(&hwc->prev_count);
- rdmsrl(hwc->event_base, new_raw_count);
+ rdpmc(hwc->event_base_rdpmc, low, high);
+ new_raw_count=((u64)high<<32 | (u64)low);

if (local64_cmpxchg(&hwc->prev_count, prev_raw_count,
new_raw_count) != prev_raw_count)
@@ -768,9 +770,11 @@ static inline void x86_assign_hw_event(struct perf_event *event,
} else if (hwc->idx >= X86_PMC_IDX_FIXED) {
hwc->config_base = MSR_ARCH_PERFMON_FIXED_CTR_CTRL;
hwc->event_base = MSR_ARCH_PERFMON_FIXED_CTR0 + (hwc->idx - X86_PMC_IDX_FIXED);
+ hwc->event_base_rdpmc = (hwc->idx - X86_PMC_IDX_FIXED) | 1<<30;
} else {
hwc->config_base = x86_pmu_config_addr(hwc->idx);
hwc->event_base = x86_pmu_event_addr(hwc->idx);
+ hwc->event_base_rdpmc = x86_pmu_addr_offset(hwc->idx);
}
}

diff --git a/include/linux/perf_event.h b/include/linux/perf_event.h
index abb2776..8caf91a 100644
--- a/include/linux/perf_event.h
+++ b/include/linux/perf_event.h
@@ -562,6 +562,7 @@ struct hw_perf_event {
u64 last_tag;
unsigned long config_base;
unsigned long event_base;
+ int event_base_rdpmc;
int idx;
int last_cpu;
struct hw_perf_event_extra extra_reg;

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