[Intel-gfx] [PATCH] drm/i915: Allow null render state batchbuffers bigger than one page

[Oscar Mateo]

On 08/23/2017 05:01 PM, Rodrigo Vivi wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 18, 2017 at 8:15 AM, Oscar Mateo <oscar.mateo at intel.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 07/14/2017 08:08 AM, Chris Wilson wrote:
>>> Quoting Oscar Mateo (2017-07-14 15:52:59)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 07/13/2017 03:28 PM, Rodrigo Vivi wrote:
>>>>> On Wed, May 3, 2017 at 9:31 AM, Chris Wilson <chris at chris-wilson.co.uk>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> On Wed, May 03, 2017 at 09:12:18AM +0000, Oscar Mateo wrote:
>>>>>>>       On 05/03/2017 08:52 AM, Mika Kuoppala wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>     Oscar Mateo [1]<oscar.mateo at intel.com> writes:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>     On 05/02/2017 09:17 AM, Mika Kuoppala wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>     Chris Wilson [2]<chris at chris-wilson.co.uk> writes:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>     On Fri, Apr 28, 2017 at 09:11:06AM +0000, Oscar Mateo wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>     The new batchbuffer for CNL surpasses the 4096 byte mark.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>     Cc: Mika Kuoppala [3]<mika.kuoppala at intel.com>
>>>>>>>     Cc: Ben Widawsky [4]<ben at bwidawsk.net>
>>>>>>>     Signed-off-by: Oscar Mateo [5]<oscar.mateo at intel.com>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>     Evil, 4k+ of nothing-ness that userspace then has to configure for
>>>>>>> itself
>>>>>>>     for correctness anyway.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>     Patch looks ok, but still question the sanity.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>     Is there a requirement for CNL to init the renderstate?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>     I would like to drop the render state init from CNL if
>>>>>>>     we can't find evidence that it needs it. Bspec indicates
>>>>>>>     that it doesnt.
>>>>> I'd like to drop as well, and I was hearing people around telling we
>>>>> didn't need anymore,
>>>>> however without this during power on I had bad failures...
>>>>>
>>>> The best I could get from architecture (+Raf) is that setting valid and
>>>> coherent values for the whole render state is required as soon as the
>>>> context is created, no matter who does it. If you see failures when the
>>>> KMD does not do it, that means the UMD must be missing something, right?
>>> That is my initial response as well. The kernel does load one context,
>>> just so that the hardware always has space to write to on power saving.
>>> The only batch executed for it is the golden render state. Easy enough
>>> to only initialise that kernel context to isolate whether it is
>>> self-inflicted or that userspace overlooked something in its state
>>> management. (I have the view that even if userspace doesn't think it
>>> needs to use a particular bit of state today, tomorrow it will so will
>>> need it anyway!)
>>> -Chris
>>
>> Rodrigo, you have access to a CNL: can you make this test? The idea is to
>> find out if the root cause for the failures you were seeing is the kernel
>> default context or in the UMD-created contexts.
> I'm sorry for the delay on this one.
>
> On the parts I have now I couldn't reproduce the issues I saw during power-on
> where null context helped.
>
> But anyways apparently we need this right?!
>
> What about the 4k+ sanity that Chris raised? Anything we should address first?

I don't think Chris had any problem with the batchbuffer being bigger 
than 4k per se. His concern was: "why do we need to send this 
batchbuffer from the KMD at all if the UMD has to send something very 
similar anyway?".
Even if this was true (I haven't found anybody to confirm or deny it) 
there is still the question of the kernel context (which would never get 
initialized to valid values by the UMD). The test was to only send the 
golden state for the kernel context (and nothing else) and see if your 
issues went away.

Since your issues went away on their own without any golden state 
whatsoever... does that mean Mesa fixed something they were missing 
during the PO?