linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 084/208] x86/fpu: Rename xsave.header::xstate

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Date:	Thu, 7 May 2015 21:35:31 +0200
From:	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>
To:	Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...ux.intel.com>
Cc:	Ingo Molnar <mingo2.kernel.org@...il.com>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	Andy Lutomirski <luto@...capital.net>,
	Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>,
	Fenghua Yu <fenghua.yu@...el.com>,
	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Oleg Nesterov <oleg@...hat.com>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 084/208] x86/fpu: Rename xsave.header::xstate_bv to
 'xfeatures'


* Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...ux.intel.com> wrote:

> >> It's not a problem today because the instruction mask is always 
> >> -1, so it always has every bit set that *MIGHT* be set in 
> >> XSTATE_BV.
> > 
> > Yes. And why would we ever want to narrow it?
> 
> Because it actually allows us to take advantage of the compaction. 
> Think of the layout of a task using protection keys and MPX.
> 
> MPX = 8*4 + 8*2 = 48 bytes.
> PKEYs = 4 bytes
> 
> They'll be spread out in the standard form *OR* the compacted form 
> with a RFBM=-1.  But, with the compacted form with RFBM=PK|MPX_BITS, 
> they'll fit in a cacheline.

but but ... if this is a normal userspace task then it will use AVX on 
modern Linux distros and then we are up to a 1K FPU context size 
already, 48 bytes won't make a visible dent - especially if compacted 
form has some saving cost. With AVX512 we are at around 2K?

I certainly don't _object_ to using the compacted format, as it makes 
sense and it's clearly getting quite a bit of attention from the 
hardware folks, but we should run some timings and such.

In any case I'm mostly just curious, not worried.

Thanks,

	Ingo
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