Date:   Fri, 12 Apr 2019 16:38:35 +0200
From:   Boris Brezillon <boris.brezillon@...labora.com>
To:     Helen Koike <helen.koike@...labora.com>
Cc:     dri-devel@...ts.freedesktop.org, David Airlie <airlied@...ux.ie>,
        dnicoara@...omium.org, daniels@...labora.com,
        alexandros.frantzis@...labora.com, daniel.vetter@...ll.ch,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, tomasz Figa <tfiga@...omium.org>,
        tina.zhang@...el.com, Sean Paul <seanpaul@...gle.com>,
        kernel@...labora.com, nicholas.kazlauskas@....com,
        Stéphane Marchesin <marcheu@...gle.com>,
        Gustavo Padovan <gustavo.padovan@...labora.com>,
        Sean Paul <sean@...rly.run>, Sandy Huang <hjc@...k-chips.com>,
        linux-doc@...r.kernel.org, Thomas Zimmermann <tzimmermann@...e.de>,
        Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>,
        Harry Wentland <harry.wentland@....com>,
        Alex Deucher <alexander.deucher@....com>,
        Bhawanpreet Lakha <Bhawanpreet.Lakha@....com>,
        "David (ChunMing) Zhou" <David1.Zhou@....com>,
        Anthony Koo <Anthony.Koo@....com>,
        Russell King <rmk+kernel@...linux.org.uk>,
        linux-rockchip@...ts.infradead.org,
        Ville Syrjälä <ville.syrjala@...ux.intel.com>,
        Rob Clark <robdclark@...il.com>,
        Heiko Stübner <heiko@...ech.de>,
        Eric Anholt <eric@...olt.net>, Leo Li <sunpeng.li@....com>,
        linux-arm-msm@...r.kernel.org,
        Christian König <christian.koenig@....com>,
        linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org,
        David Francis <David.Francis@....com>,
        Mikita Lipski <mikita.lipski@....com>,
        amd-gfx@...ts.freedesktop.org,
        Maarten Lankhorst <maarten.lankhorst@...ux.intel.com>,
        Maxime Ripard <maxime.ripard@...tlin.com>,
        freedreno@...ts.freedesktop.org,
        Mamta Shukla <mamtashukla555@...il.com>,
        Daniel Vetter <daniel@...ll.ch>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v3 2/4] drm/atomic: rename async_{update,check} to
 amend_{update,check}

On Fri, 12 Apr 2019 11:06:13 -0300
Helen Koike <helen.koike@...labora.com> wrote:

> Hi Boris,
> 
> On 4/12/19 10:49 AM, Boris Brezillon wrote:
> > Hi Helen,
> > 
> > On Fri, 12 Apr 2019 09:58:25 -0300
> > Helen Koike <helen.koike@...labora.com> wrote:
> >   
> >> Asynchronous update is the ability change the hw state at any time, not
> >> only during vblank.
> >>
> >> Amend mode is the ability to perform 1000 commits to be applied as soon
> >> as possible without waiting for 1000 vblanks.
> >>
> >> async updates can be seen as amend, but the opposite is not true.
> >>
> >> &drm_plane_helper_funcs.atomic_async_{update,check}() was being used by
> >> drivers to implement amend and not async. So rename them to amend.
> >>
> >> Also improve docs explaining the difference.
> >>
> >> If asynchronous is required, normal page flip can be performed using
> >> DRM_MODE_PAGE_FLIP_ASYNC flag.
> >>
> >> Signed-off-by: Helen Koike <helen.koike@...labora.com>
> >>
> >> ---
> >> Hello,
> >>
> >> I would like to officially clarify what async update means by adding it
> >> in the docs.
> >> Please correct me if I am wrong, but the current async_{update,check}
> >> callbacks are being used to do amend (the legacy cursor behavior), i.e.
> >> to allow 1000 updates without waiting for 1000 vblanks.  
> > 
> > Right now, the semantic of async update is driver dependent. Some
> > drivers will amend the last commit touching that plane (amend semantic),
> > others will update the plane buffer immediately which might cause
> > tearing (async semantic).  
> 
> In my pov, async updates holds the properties of an amend update, so all
> async updates we have are amend, but the opposite is not true.

By doing that you keep the definition quite vague, and developers will
still confused about what they should do when AMEND is requested. Why
not distinguishing AMEND and ASYNC now?

AMEND: replace the pending plane update (if any) by the new one, and
make sure things will be applied on the next VBLANK (if nothing else
amends the commit in the meantime)

ASYNC: update things immediately (don't wait for VBLANK)

> 
> >   
> >>
> >> So I would like to clarify this in the docs and rename the current
> >> callbacks to reflect this behaviour.  
> > 
> > I'm all for this clarification, but I don't think renaming the async
> > hooks is a good idea, since some drivers will not do real 'amend'. So,
> > you're changing the name, but it's still confusing :-).
> > 
> > How about adding new hooks (and/or flags) for the AMEND case, and
> > keeping the async path untouched. We can then let drivers that
> > currently implement async as amend implement the amend hooks instead.
> > Once you've done that, you can hook that up to the legacy cursor update
> > path so that it first tries one then the other and finally falls back
> > to a sync update if none of ASYNC/AMEND is possible.  
> 
> I kinda did this (I re-introduced async in the last patch in the
> series). I know this order is confusing, but as rockchip doesn't
> implement true async, I would have to do a bunch of modifs at once to
> keep the commits consistent, but I can re-work on that if it makes
> things clearer.

Let's wait for more feedback before taking a decision on this aspect.

> 
> >   
> >>
> >> I also see that for real async updates, the flag
> >> DRM_MODE_PAGE_FLIP_ASYNC can be used in a normal sync update (it is
> >> already being used by some drivers actually, in the atomic path, not only
> >> in the legacy page flip, at least is what I understood from
> >> amdgpu_dm_atomic_commit_tail() implementation).  
> > 
> > Yes, right now, async does not necessarily imply non-block, but
> > Daniel seemed to think that most users want non-block when they do an
> > async page flip, so maybe it should be clarified too.  
> 
> users could combine NONBLOCK flag with PAGE_FLIP_ASYNC, no? (we need to
> add code for it of course).

I guess AMD goes through the sync update path to guarantee that fences
are signaled before doing the page flip, but most of the time, when you
do an async page flip you don't want to block :-).

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