linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] powerpc/lib: Remove .balign inside string functions for PPC32

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Message-ID: <0e43fd45-67bf-273f-5591-eb01f2254bfc@c-s.fr>
Date:   Thu, 17 May 2018 16:21:17 +0200
From:   Christophe LEROY <christophe.leroy@....fr>
To:     Michael Ellerman <mpe@...erman.id.au>,
        Nicholas Piggin <npiggin@...il.com>
Cc:     Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@...nel.crashing.org>,
        Paul Mackerras <paulus@...ba.org>,
        linuxppc-dev@...ts.ozlabs.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] powerpc/lib: Remove .balign inside string functions for
 PPC32



Le 17/05/2018 à 15:46, Michael Ellerman a écrit :
> Nicholas Piggin <npiggin@...il.com> writes:
> 
>> On Thu, 17 May 2018 12:04:13 +0200 (CEST)
>> Christophe Leroy <christophe.leroy@....fr> wrote:
>>
>>> commit 87a156fb18fe1 ("Align hot loops of some string functions")
>>> degraded the performance of string functions by adding useless
>>> nops
>>>
>>> A simple benchmark on an 8xx calling 100000x a memchr() that
>>> matches the first byte runs in 41668 TB ticks before this patch
>>> and in 35986 TB ticks after this patch. So this gives an
>>> improvement of approx 10%
>>>
>>> Another benchmark doing the same with a memchr() matching the 128th
>>> byte runs in 1011365 TB ticks before this patch and 1005682 TB ticks
>>> after this patch, so regardless on the number of loops, removing
>>> those useless nops improves the test by 5683 TB ticks.
>>>
>>> Fixes: 87a156fb18fe1 ("Align hot loops of some string functions")
>>> Signed-off-by: Christophe Leroy <christophe.leroy@....fr>
>>> ---
>>>   Was sent already as part of a serie optimising string functions.
>>>   Resending on itself as it is independent of the other changes in the
>>> serie
>>>
>>>   arch/powerpc/lib/string.S | 6 ++++++
>>>   1 file changed, 6 insertions(+)
>>>
>>> diff --git a/arch/powerpc/lib/string.S b/arch/powerpc/lib/string.S
>>> index a787776822d8..a026d8fa8a99 100644
>>> --- a/arch/powerpc/lib/string.S
>>> +++ b/arch/powerpc/lib/string.S
>>> @@ -23,7 +23,9 @@ _GLOBAL(strncpy)
>>>   	mtctr	r5
>>>   	addi	r6,r3,-1
>>>   	addi	r4,r4,-1
>>> +#ifdef CONFIG_PPC64
>>>   	.balign 16
>>> +#endif
>>>   1:	lbzu	r0,1(r4)
>>>   	cmpwi	0,r0,0
>>>   	stbu	r0,1(r6)
>>
>> The ifdefs are a bit ugly, but you can't argue with the numbers. These
>> alignments should be IFETCH_ALIGN_BYTES, which is intended to optimise
>> the ifetch performance when you have such a loop (although there is
>> always a tradeoff for a single iteration).
>>
>> Would it make sense to define that for 32-bit as well, and you could use
>> it here instead of the ifdefs? Small CPUs could just use 0.
> 
> Can we do it with a macro in the header, eg. like:
> 
> #ifdef CONFIG_PPC64
> #define IFETCH_BALIGN	.balign IFETCH_ALIGN_BYTES
> #endif
> 
> ...
> 
>    	addi	r4,r4,-1
>    	IFETCH_BALIGN
>    1:	lbzu	r0,1(r4)
> 
> 

Why not just define IFETCH_ALIGN_SHIFT for PPC32 as well in asm/cache.h 
?, then replace the .balign 16 by .balign IFETCH_ALIGN_BYTES (or .align 
IFETCH_ALIGN_SHIFT) ?

Christophe

> cheers
>