[RFC PATCH 00/10] drm/panthor: Add user submission

[Matthew Brost]

On Mon, Nov 11, 2024 at 01:57:15PM +0100, Christian König wrote:
> Am 08.11.24 um 23:27 schrieb Matthew Brost:
> > On Tue, Sep 24, 2024 at 11:30:53AM +0200, Simona Vetter wrote:
> > > Apologies for the late reply ...
> > > 
> > Also late reply, just read this.
> > 
> > > On Wed, Sep 04, 2024 at 01:34:18PM +0200, Christian König wrote:
> > > > Hi Boris,
> > > > 
> > > > Am 04.09.24 um 13:23 schrieb Boris Brezillon:
> > > > > > > > > Please read up here on why that stuff isn't allowed:
> > > > > > > > > https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/driver-api/dma-buf.html#indefinite-dma-fences
> > > > > > > > panthor doesn't yet have a shrinker, so all memory is pinned, which means
> > > > > > > > memory management easy mode.
> > > > > > > Ok, that at least makes things work for the moment.
> > > > > > Ah, perhaps this should have been spelt out more clearly ;)
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > The VM_BIND mechanism that's already in place jumps through some hoops
> > > > > > to ensure that memory is preallocated when the memory operations are
> > > > > > enqueued. So any memory required should have been allocated before any
> > > > > > sync object is returned. We're aware of the issue with memory
> > > > > > allocations on the signalling path and trying to ensure that we don't
> > > > > > have that.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > I'm hoping that we don't need a shrinker which deals with (active) GPU
> > > > > > memory with our design.
> > > > > That's actually what we were planning to do: the panthor shrinker was
> > > > > about to rely on fences attached to GEM objects to know if it can
> > > > > reclaim the memory. This design relies on each job attaching its fence
> > > > > to the GEM mapped to the VM at the time the job is submitted, such that
> > > > > memory that's in-use or about-to-be-used doesn't vanish before the GPU
> > > > > is done.
> > > > Yeah and exactly that doesn't work any more when you are using user queues,
> > > > because the kernel has no opportunity to attach a fence for each submission.
> > > > 
> > > > > > Memory which user space thinks the GPU might
> > > > > > need should be pinned before the GPU work is submitted. APIs which
> > > > > > require any form of 'paging in' of data would need to be implemented by
> > > > > > the GPU work completing and being resubmitted by user space after the
> > > > > > memory changes (i.e. there could be a DMA fence pending on the GPU work).
> > > > > Hard pinning memory could work (ioctl() around gem_pin/unpin()), but
> > > > > that means we can't really transparently swap out GPU memory, or we
> > > > > have to constantly pin/unpin around each job, which means even more
> > > > > ioctl()s than we have now. Another option would be to add the XGS fence
> > > > > to the BOs attached to the VM, assuming it's created before the job
> > > > > submission itself, but you're no longer reducing the number of user <->
> > > > > kernel round trips if you do that, because you now have to create an
> > > > > XSG job for each submission, so you basically get back to one ioctl()
> > > > > per submission.
> > > > For AMDGPU we are currently working on the following solution with memory
> > > > management and user queues:
> > > > 
> > > > 1. User queues are created through an kernel IOCTL, submissions work by
> > > > writing into a ring buffer and ringing a doorbell.
> > > > 
> > > > 2. Each queue can request the kernel to create fences for the currently
> > > > pushed work for a queues which can then be attached to BOs, syncobjs,
> > > > syncfiles etc...
> > > > 
> > > > 3. Additional to that we have and eviction/preemption fence attached to all
> > > > BOs, page tables, whatever resources we need.
> > > > 
> > > > 4. When this eviction fences are requested to signal they first wait for all
> > > > submission fences and then suspend the user queues and block creating new
> > > > submission fences until the queues are restarted again.
> > > Yup this works, at least when I play it out in my head.
> > > 
> > I just started experimenting with user submission in Xe last week and
> > ended up landing on a different PoC, blissfully unaware future fences /
> > Mesa submit thread. However, after Sima filled me in, I’ve essentially
> > landed on exactly what Christian is describing in Xe. I haven’t coded it
> > yet, but have the design in my head.
> 
> Sounds like going over that design again and again was good invested time.
> 
> And yeah we have it working and at least so far it really looks like it
> works.
> 

>From the progress I've made, yea I think this can work with some
cooperation from user space. Engaging with the Mesa team this week to
get a more clear picture on that end.

> > I also generally agree with Sima’s comments about having a somewhat
> > generic preempt fence (Christian refers to this as an eviction fence)
> > as well.
> 
> Well that is really a bike-sheet.
> 
> I don't care if we call it preempt fence or eviction fence as long as
> everybody understands what that thing is supposed to do.
> 
> Probably something we should document.
> 

Agree something common / documented would be good given how tricky this
will be to get correct.

> > Additionally, I’m thinking it might be beneficial for us to add a new
> > 'preempt' dma-resv slot to track these, which would make it easier to
> > enforce the ordering of submission fence signaling before preempt
> > fences.
> 
> That's exactly what DMA_RESV_USAGE_BOOKKEEP is good for.
> 

We can move this specific discussion to the RFC I posted. Saw you
replied there and will respond shortly / once I have followed up on a
few things on my end.

> And yes, I spend really *a lot of time* planning this :)
> 

I've looked at the list and bunch of patches are on there modifying code
which is not merged to drm-tip. e.g. This patch [1].

Trying to piece together what AMD is doing compared to what I had in
mind is bit difficult without being able to directly look at the code.
Any chance you have a public repo I can look at?

[1] https://patchwork.freedesktop.org/patch/622074/?series=140648&rev=1

> > Depending on bandwidth, I may post an RFC to the list soon. I’ll also
> > gauge the interest and bandwidth from our Mesa team to begin UMD work.
> 
> Please loop me in as well.
> 

Will do. Coming together pretty quick so it shouldn't be too long until
I can post something or push a public branch. I think the Mesa side is
going to be the more difficult piece and unsure how much interest there
be to move this along.

Matt

> Regards,
> Christian.
> 
> > 
> > Matt
> > 
> > > Note that the completion fence is only deadlock free if userspace is
> > > really, really careful. Which in practice means you need the very
> > > carefully constructed rules for e.g. vulkan winsys fences, otherwise you
> > > do indeed deadlock.
> > > 
> > > But if you keep that promise in mind, then it works, and step 2 is
> > > entirely option, which means we can start userspace in a pure long-running
> > > compute mode where there's only eviction/preemption fences. And then if
> > > userspace needs a vulkan winsys fence, we can create that with step 2 as
> > > needed.
> > > 
> > > But the important part is that you need really strict rules on userspace
> > > for when step 2 is ok and won't result in deadlocks. And those rules are
> > > uapi, which is why I think doing this in panthor without the shrinker and
> > > eviction fences (i.e. steps 3&4 above) is a very bad mistake.
> > > 
> > > > This way you can still do your memory management inside the kernel (e.g.
> > > > move BOs from local to system memory) or even completely suspend and resume
> > > > applications without their interaction, but as Sima said it is just horrible
> > > > complicated to get right.
> > > > 
> > > > We have been working on this for like two years now and it still could be
> > > > that we missed something since it is not in production testing yet.
> > > Ack.
> > > -Sima
> > > -- 
> > > Simona Vetter
> > > Software Engineer, Intel Corporation
> > > http://blog.ffwll.ch
>