[Intel-gfx] [PATCH 2/2] drm/i915: Limit the busy wait on requests to 2us not 10ms!

[Chris Wilson]

On Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 12:08:08PM +0000, Tvrtko Ursulin wrote:
> 
> On 16/11/15 11:12, Chris Wilson wrote:
> >On Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 10:24:45AM +0000, Tvrtko Ursulin wrote:
> >>On 15/11/15 13:32, Chris Wilson wrote:
> >>>+static u64 local_clock_us(unsigned *cpu)
> >>>+{
> >>>+	u64 t;
> >>>+
> >>>+	*cpu = get_cpu();
> >>>+	t = local_clock() >> 10;
> >>
> >>Needs comment I think to explicitly mention the approximation, or
> >>maybe drop the _us suffix?
> >
> >I did consider _approx_us but thought that was overkill. A comment along
> >the lines of
> >/* Approximately convert ns to us - the error is less than the
> >  * truncation!
> >  */
> 
> And the result is not used in subsequent calculations apart from
> comparing against an approximate timeout?

Exactly, the timeout is fairly arbitrary and defined in the same units.
That we truncate is a much bigger cause for concern in terms of spinning
accurately for a definite length of time.
 
> >>>@@ -1161,7 +1183,7 @@ static int __i915_spin_request(struct drm_i915_gem_request *req, int state)
> >>>  		if (signal_pending_state(state, current))
> >>>  			break;
> >>>
> >>>-		if (time_after_eq(jiffies, timeout))
> >>>+		if (busywait_stop(timeout, cpu))
> >>>  			break;
> >>>
> >>>  		cpu_relax_lowlatency();
> >>>
> >>
> >>Otherwise looks good. Not sure what would you convert to 32-bit from
> >>your follow up reply since you need us resolution?
> >
> >s/u64/unsigned long/ s/time_after64/time_after/
> >
> >32bits of us resolution gives us 1000s before wraparound between the two
> >samples. And I hope that a 1000s doesn't pass between loops. Or if it does,
> >the GPU managed to complete its task.
> 
> Now I see that you did say low bits.. yes that sounds fine.
> 
> Btw while you are optimizing things maybe pick up this micro
> optimization: http://patchwork.freedesktop.org/patch/64339/
> 
> Not in scope of this thread but under the normal development patch flow.

There's a different series which looks at tackling the scalabiltiy issue
with dozens of concurrent waiters. I have an equivalent patch there and
one to tidy up the seqno query.
 
> Btw2, any benchmark result changes with this?

Spinning still gives the dramatic (2x) improvement in the microbenchmarks
(over pure interrupt driven waits), so that improvement is preserved.
There are a couple of interesting swings in the macro tests (comparedt to
the previous jiffie patch) just above the noise level which could well be
a change in the throttling/scheduling. (And those tests are also the
ones that correspond to the greatest gains (10-40%) using spinning.)
-Chris

-- 
Chris Wilson, Intel Open Source Technology Centre