[Intel-gfx] [PATCH v7 0/8] Convert requests to use struct fence

[John.C.Harrison at Intel.com]

From: John Harrison <John.C.Harrison at Intel.com>

There is a construct in the linux kernel called 'struct fence' that is
intended to keep track of work that is executed on hardware. I.e. it
solves the basic problem that the drivers 'struct
drm_i915_gem_request' is trying to address. The request structure does
quite a lot more than simply track the execution progress so is very
definitely still required. However, the basic completion status side
could be updated to use the ready made fence implementation and gain
all the advantages that provides.

Using the struct fence object also has the advantage that the fence
can be used outside of the i915 driver (by other drivers or by
userland applications). That is the basis of the dma-buff
synchronisation API and allows asynchronous tracking of work
completion. In this case, it allows applications to be signalled
directly when a batch buffer completes without having to make an IOCTL
call into the driver.

Note that in order to allow the full fence API to be used (e.g.
merging multiple fences together), the driver needs to provide an
incrementing timeline for the fence. Currently this timeline is
specific to the fence code as it must be per context. There is future
work planned to make the driver's internal seqno value also be per
context rather than driver global (VIZ-7443). Once this is done the
fence specific timeline code can be dropped in favour of just using
the driver's seqno value.

This is work that was planned since the conversion of the driver from
being seqno value based to being request structure based. This patch
series does that work.

An IGT test to exercise the fence support from user land is in
progress and will follow. Android already makes extensive use of
fences for display composition. Real world linux usage is planned in
the form of Jesse's page table sharing / bufferless execbuf support.
There is also a plan that Wayland (and others) could make use of it in
a similar manner to Android.

v2: Updated for review comments by various people and to add support
for Android style 'native sync'.

v3: Updated from review comments by Tvrtko Ursulin. Also moved sync
framework out of staging and improved request completion handling.

v4: Fixed patch tag (should have been PATCH not RFC). Corrected
ownership of one patch which had passed through many hands before
reaching me. Fixed a bug introduced in v3 and updated for review
comments.

v5: Removed de-staging and further updates to Android sync code. The
de-stage is now being handled by someone else. The sync integration to
the i915 driver will be a separate patch set that can only land after
the external de-stage has been completed.

Assorted changes based on review comments and style checker fixes.
Most significant change is fixing up the fake lost interrupt support
for the 'drv_missed_irq_hang' IGT test and improving the wait request
latency.

v6: Updated to newer nigthly and resolved conflicts around updates
to the wait_request optimisations.

v7: Updated to newer nightly and resolved conflicts around massive
ring -> engine rename and interface change to get_seqno(). Also fixed
up a race condition issue with stale request pointers in file client
lists and added a minor optimisation to not acquire spinlocks when a
list is empty and does not need processing.

[Patches against drm-intel-nightly tree fetched 13/04/2016]

John Harrison (8):
  drm/i915: Convert requests to use struct fence
  drm/i915: Removed now redudant parameter to i915_gem_request_completed()
  drm/i915: Add per context timelines to fence object
  drm/i915: Fix clean up of file client list on execbuff failure
  drm/i915: Delay the freeing of requests until retire time
  drm/i915: Interrupt driven fences
  drm/i915: Updated request structure tracing
  drm/i915: Cache last IRQ seqno to reduce IRQ overhead

 drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_debugfs.c        |   7 +-
 drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_drv.h            |  74 +++--
 drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_gem.c            | 443 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++---
 drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_gem_context.c    |  14 +
 drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_gem_execbuffer.c |   6 +-
 drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_irq.c            |   3 +-
 drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_trace.h          |  14 +-
 drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c       |   4 +-
 drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_lrc.c           |  13 +
 drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_pm.c            |   6 +-
 drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_ringbuffer.c    |   5 +
 drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_ringbuffer.h    |  12 +
 12 files changed, 513 insertions(+), 88 deletions(-)

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1.9.1