linux-kernel - Re: Performance analysis of Linux Kernel Markers 0.20 for 2.6.17

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Date:	Sun, 01 Oct 2006 16:57:40 -0700
From:	Nicholas Miell <nmiell@...cast.net>
To:	Mathieu Desnoyers <compudj@...stal.dyndns.org>
Cc:	Martin Bligh <mbligh@...gle.com>,
	"Frank Ch. Eigler" <fche@...hat.com>,
	Masami Hiramatsu <masami.hiramatsu.pt@...achi.com>,
	prasanna@...ibm.com, Andrew Morton <akpm@...l.org>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>, Paul Mundt <lethal@...ux-sh.org>,
	linux-kernel <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Jes Sorensen <jes@....com>, Tom Zanussi <zanussi@...ibm.com>,
	Richard J Moore <richardj_moore@...ibm.com>,
	Michel Dagenais <michel.dagenais@...ymtl.ca>,
	Christoph Hellwig <hch@...radead.org>,
	Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...e.de>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	William Cohen <wcohen@...hat.com>, ltt-dev@...fik.org,
	systemtap@...rces.redhat.com, Alan Cox <alan@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk>,
	Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy@...p.org>,
	Karim Yaghmour <karim@...rsys.com>,
	Pavel Machek <pavel@...e.cz>, Joe Perches <joe@...ches.com>,
	"Randy.Dunlap" <rdunlap@...otime.net>,
	"Jose R. Santos" <jrs@...ibm.com>
Subject: Re: Performance analysis of Linux Kernel Markers 0.20 for 2.6.17

On Sun, 2006-10-01 at 11:33 -0400, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
> * Nicholas Miell (nmiell@...cast.net) wrote:
> > On Sat, 2006-09-30 at 23:42 -0400, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
> > > * Nicholas Miell (nmiell@...cast.net) wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > Has anyone done any performance measurements with the "regular function
> > > > call replaced by a NOP" type of marker?
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > Here it is (on the same setup as the other tests : Pentium 4, 3 GHz) :
> > > 
> > > * Execute an empty loop
> > > 
> > > - Without marker
> > > NR_LOOPS : 10000000
> > > time delta (cycles): 15026497
> > > cycles per loop : 1.50
> > > 
> > > - With 5 NOPs
> > > NR_LOOPS : 100000
> > > time delta (cycles): 300157
> > > cycles per loop : 3.00
> > > added cycles per loop for nops : 3.00-1.50 = 1.50
> > > 
> > > 
> > > * Execute a loop of memcpy 4096 bytes
> > > 
> > > - Without marker
> > > NR_LOOPS : 10000
> > > time delta (cycles): 12981555
> > > cycles per loop : 1298.16
> > > 
> > > - With 5 NOPs
> > > NR_LOOPS : 10000
> > > time delta (cycles): 12983925
> > > cycles per loop : 1298.39
> > > added cycles per loop for nops : 0.23
> > > 
> > > 
> > > If we compare this approach to the jump-over-call markers (in cycles per loop) :
> > > 
> > >               NOPs    Jump over call generic    Jump over call optimized
> > > empty loop    1.50    1.17                      2.50 
> > > memcpy        0.23    2.12                      0.07
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Mathieu
> > 
> > What about with two NOPs (".byte 0x66, 0x66, 0x90, 0x66, 0x90" - this
> > should work with everything) or one (".byte 0x0f, 0x1f, 0x44, 0x00,
> > 0x00" - AFAIK, this should work with P6 or newer).
> > 
> > (Sorry, I should have mentioned this the first time.)
> > 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> The tests I made were with : 
> #define GENERIC_NOP1    ".byte 0x90\n"
> #define GENERIC_NOP4        ".byte 0x8d,0x74,0x26,0x00\n"
> #define GENERIC_NOP5        GENERIC_NOP1 GENERIC_NOP4
> 
> Now with the tests you ask for :
> 
> * Execute an empty loop
> - 2 NOPs ".byte 0x66, 0x66, 0x90, 0x66, 0x90"
> NR_LOOPS : 100000
> time delta (cycles): 200190
> cycles per loop : 2.00
> cycles per loop for nops : 2.00-1.50 = 0.50
> 
> - 1 NOP "0x0f, 0x1f, 0x44, 0x00, 0x00"
> NR_LOOPS : 100000
> time delta (cycles): 300172
> cycles per loop : 3.00
> cycles per loop for nops : 3.00-1.50 = 2.50
> 
> 
> * Execute a loop of memcpy 4096 bytes
> - 2 NOPs ".byte 0x66, 0x66, 0x90, 0x66, 0x90"
> NR_LOOPS : 10000
> time delta (cycles): 12981293
> cycles per loop : 1298.13
> cycles per loop for nops : 1298.16-1298.13=0.03
> 
> - 1 NOP "0x0f, 0x1f, 0x44, 0x00, 0x00"
> NR_LOOPS : 10000
> time delta (cycles): 12985590
> cycles per loop : 1298.56
> cycles per loop for nops : 0.43
> 

To summarize in chart form:

              	JoC	JoCo	2NOP	1NOP
empty loop	1.17	2.50	0.50	2.50
memcpy		2.12	0.07	0.03	0.43

JoC 	= Jump over call - generic
JoCo	= Jump over call - optimized
2NOP	= "data16 data16 nop; data16 nop"
1NOP	= NOP with ModRM

I left out your "nop; lea 0(%esi), %esi" because it isn't actually a NOP
(the CPU will do actual work even if it has no effect, and on AMD64,
that insn is "nop; lea 0(%rdi), %esi", which will truncate RDI+0 to fit
32-bits.)

The performance of NOP with ModRM doesn't suprise me -- AFAIK, only the
most recent of Intel CPUs actually special case that to be a true
no-work-done NOP.

It'd be nice to see the results of "jump to an out-of-line call with the
jump replaced by a NOP", but even if it performs well (and it should,
the argument passing and stack alignment overhead won't be executed in
the disabled probe case), actually using it in practice would be
difficult without compiler support (call instructions are easy to find
thanks to their relocations, which local jumps don't have).

-- 
Nicholas Miell <nmiell@...cast.net>

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