[PATCH 0/5] radeon: Write-combined CPU mappings of BOs in GTT

[Christian König]

Am 18.07.2014 05:07, schrieb Michel Dänzer:
>>> [PATCH 5/5] drm/radeon: Use VRAM for indirect buffers on >= SI
>> I'm still not very keen with this change since I still don't understand
>> the reason why it's faster than with GTT. Definitely needs more testing
>> on a wider range of systems.
> Sure. If anyone wants to give this patch a spin and see if they can
> measure any performance difference, good or bad, that would be interesting.
>
>> Maybe limit it to APUs for now?
> But IIRC, CPU writes to VRAM vs. write-combined GTT are actually an even
> bigger win with dedicated GPUs than with the Kaveri built-in GPU on my
> system. I suspect it may depend on the bandwidth available for PCIe vs.
> system memory though.

I've made a few tests today with the kernel part of the patches running 
Xonotic on Ultra in 1920 x 1080.

Without any patches I get around ~47.0fps on average with my dedicated 
HD7870.

Adding only "drm/radeon: Use write-combined CPU mappings of rings and 
IBs on >= SI" and that goes down to ~45.3fps.

Adding on to off that "drm/radeon: Use VRAM for indirect buffers on >= 
SI" and the frame rate goes down to ~27.74fps.

So enabling this unconditionally is definitely not a good idea. What I 
don't understand yet is why using USWC reduces the fps on SI as well. It 
looks like the reads from the IB buffer for command stream validation on 
SI affect that more than thought.

Christian.