linux-kernel - Re: [perfmon2] comments on Performance Counters for Linux (PCL)

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Date:	Sat, 30 May 2009 21:16:29 +0200
From:	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>
To:	Carl Love <cel@...ibm.com>
Cc:	Geert Uytterhoeven <Geert.Uytterhoeven@...ycom.com>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Peter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@...llo.nl>,
	Philip Mucci <mucci@...s.utk.edu>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Andi Kleen <andi@...stfloor.org>,
	Paul Mackerras <paulus@...ba.org>,
	Maynard Johnson <mpjohn@...ibm.com>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>, eranian@...il.com,
	perfmon2-devel <perfmon2-devel@...ts.sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: [perfmon2] comments on Performance Counters for Linux (PCL)


* Carl Love <cel@...ibm.com> wrote:

> 
> On Fri, 2009-05-29 at 10:21 +0200, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:
> > On Fri, 29 May 2009, Ingo Molnar wrote:
> > > * Paul Mackerras <paulus@...ba.org> wrote:
> > > > Ingo Molnar writes:
> > > > > * Corey Ashford <cjashfor@...ux.vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
> > > > > >> So you're suggesting to artificually strech periods by say 
> > > > > >> composing a single overflow from smaller ones, ignoring the 
> > > > > >> intermediate overflow events?
> > > > > >>
> > > > > >> That sounds doable, again, patch welcome.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I definitely agree with Stephane's point on this one.  I had 
> > > > > > assumed that long irq_periods (longer than the width of the 
> > > > > > counter) would be synthesized as you suggest.  If this is not the 
> > > > > > case, PCL should be changed so that it does, -or- at a minimum, 
> > > > > > the user should get an error back stating that the period is too 
> > > > > > long for the hardware counter.
> > > > > 
> > > > > this looks somewhat academic - at least on x86, even the fastest 
> > > > > events (say cycles) with a 32 bit overflow means one event per 
> > > > > second on 4GB. That's not a significant event count in practice. 
> > > > > What's the minimum width we are talking about on Power?
> > > > 
> > > > 32 bits, but since the top bit is effectively a level-sensitive 
> > > > interrupt request, the maximum period in hardware is 2^31 counts.
> > > > 
> > > > However, I already support 64-bit interrupt periods (well, 63-bit 
> > > > actually) on powerpc by only calling perf_counter_overflow() when 
> > > > counter->hw.period_left becomes <= 0, and arranging to set the 
> > > > hardware counter to 0 if counter->hw.period_left is >= 0x80000000. 
> > > > It's a tiny amount of code to handle it, really.
> > > 
> > > No argument about that - just wanted to know whether there's any 
> > > real practical effect beyond the nitpicking factor ;-)
> > 
> > I never really dived into this stuff, but ISTR there are some 16-bit counters
> > on CELL? Is that correct?
> 
> FYI, the counters on CELL are configurable.  You can have up to 
> eight 16 bit count counters or you can combine counters i and i=1 
> (where i=0,2,4,6) into 32 bit counters.  This allows you to have 
> some 16 and some 32 bit counters at the same time.

If 16-bit counters are exposed then this can be solved like the 
PowerPC perfcounters code does it: by not propagating 'early' IRQs 
back to the generic layer but continuing it until the real threshold 
has been reached.

	Ingo
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