Re: [PATCH 5/5] mm: x86: Revisit tlb_flushall_shift tuning for pageflushes except on IvyBridge

From: Rik van Riel
Date: Thu Jan 09 2014 - 15:02:31 EST


On 01/09/2014 09:34 AM, Mel Gorman wrote:
There was a large ebizzy performance regression that was bisected to commit
611ae8e3 (x86/tlb: enable tlb flush range support for x86). The problem
was related to the tlb_flushall_shift tuning for IvyBridge which was
altered. The problem is that it is not clear if the tuning values for each
CPU family is correct as the methodology used to tune the values is unclear.

This patch uses a conservative tlb_flushall_shift value for all CPU families
except IvyBridge so the decision can be revisited if any regression is found
as a result of this change. IvyBridge is an exception as testing with one
methodology determined that the value of 2 is acceptable. Details are in the
changelog for the patch "x86: mm: Change tlb_flushall_shift for IvyBridge".

One important aspect of this to watch out for is Xen. The original commit
log mentioned large performance gains on Xen. It's possible Xen is more
sensitive to this value if it flushes small ranges of pages more frequently
than workloads on bare metal typically do.

Signed-off-by: Mel Gorman <mgorman@xxxxxxx>

Reviewed-by: Rik van Riel <riel@xxxxxxxxxx>

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