[Intel-gfx] [PATCH v4 2/4] drm/i915: Use the vma resource as argument for gtt binding / unbinding

[Thomas Hellström]

On 1/4/22 17:07, Thomas Hellström wrote:
> Hi, Oak,
>
> On 1/4/22 16:35, Zeng, Oak wrote:
>>
>> Regards,
>> Oak
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Thomas Hellström <thomas.hellstrom at linux.intel.com>
>>> Sent: January 4, 2022 3:29 AM
>>> To: Zeng, Oak <oak.zeng at intel.com>; intel-gfx at lists.freedesktop.org; 
>>> dri-devel at lists.freedesktop.org
>>> Cc: Auld, Matthew <matthew.auld at intel.com>
>>> Subject: Re: [Intel-gfx] [PATCH v4 2/4] drm/i915: Use the vma 
>>> resource as argument for gtt binding / unbinding
>>>
>>> Hi, Oak.
>>>
>>> On 1/4/22 00:08, Zeng, Oak wrote:
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Oak
>>> Looks like your emails always start with "Regards, Oak". a 
>>> misconfiguration?
>> My mail client (outlook) is set to automatically add a regards, when 
>> I compose new mail or reply email. Not a big problem 😊
>>
>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: Thomas Hellström <thomas.hellstrom at linux.intel.com>
>>>>> Sent: January 3, 2022 1:58 PM
>>>>> To: Zeng, Oak <oak.zeng at intel.com>; 
>>>>> intel-gfx at lists.freedesktop.org; dri-devel at lists.freedesktop.org
>>>>> Cc: Auld, Matthew <matthew.auld at intel.com>
>>>>> Subject: Re: [Intel-gfx] [PATCH v4 2/4] drm/i915: Use the vma 
>>>>> resource as argument for gtt binding / unbinding
>>>>>
>>>>> Hi, Oak.
>>>>>
>>>>> On 1/3/22 19:17, Zeng, Oak wrote:
>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>> Oak
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>>> From: Intel-gfx <intel-gfx-bounces at lists.freedesktop.org> On 
>>>>>>> Behalf Of Thomas Hellström
>>>>>>> Sent: January 3, 2022 7:00 AM
>>>>>>> To: intel-gfx at lists.freedesktop.org; 
>>>>>>> dri-devel at lists.freedesktop.org
>>>>>>> Cc: Thomas Hellström <thomas.hellstrom at linux.intel.com>; Auld, 
>>>>>>> Matthew <matthew.auld at intel.com>
>>>>>>> Subject: [Intel-gfx] [PATCH v4 2/4] drm/i915: Use the vma 
>>>>>>> resource as argument for gtt binding / unbinding
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> When introducing asynchronous unbinding, the vma itself may no 
>>>>>>> longer
>>>>>>> be alive when the actual binding or unbinding takes place.
>>>>>> Can we take an extra reference counter of the vma to keep the vma 
>>>>>> alive, until the actual binding/unbinding takes place?
>>>>> The point here is that that's not needed, and should be avoided.
>>>> Can you explain more why "keeping vma alive until unbinding takes 
>>>> place" should be avoided?
>>>>
>>>> As I understand it, your series introduce asynchronized unbinding. 
>>>> But since vma might be no longer alive at the time of unbinding.
>>> To overcome this difficulty, you introduce a vma resource structure 
>>> and you guarantee vma resource is alive at bind/unbind time. So
>>> you can use vma resource for the bind/unbind operation. My question 
>>> is, can we achieve the asynchronized unbinding still using vma
>>> structure by keeping vma structure alive ( by ref count it). This 
>>> way the change should be much smaller (compared to this series). Why
>>> it is harmful to keep the vma alive? Maybe you have other reasons to 
>>> introduce vma resource that I don't see.
>>>
>>> When we allow asynchronous unbinding, it's allowed to immediately 
>>> rebind
>>> the vma, possibly into the same gpu virtual address, but with different
>>> pages. And when doing that we don't want to block waiting for the 
>>> unbind
>>> to execute.
>> Imagine this sequence:
>>
>> 1. Virtual address a1 is bound to physical page p1
>> 2. Unbind a1 from p1, asynchronous so actual unbind not happen yet
>> 3. bind a1 to physical page p2, page table is changed, now a1 
>> pointing to p2 in page table.
>> 4. #2 now take place now - since in page table, a1 points to p2 now, 
>> does a1 point to scratch page after #4?
>
> Here, 3) will also become async, awaiting any pending unbinds in the 
> address range provided to 3), in particular, the bind in 3) will await 
> 4). See i915_vma_resource_bind_dep_await(), and the discussion on 
> whether or not to use an interval tree for this at the start of 
> i915_vma_resource.c
>
>> In fact, we could allow a large number of outstanding binds
>>> and unbinds for a vma, which makes the vma structure unsuitable to 
>>> track
>>> this, since there will no longer be a single mapping between a set of
>>> active pages and a vma, or a virtual gpu range and a vma.
>> I agree that if pages - vma - virtual gpu range is not 1:1:1 mapping, 
>> we need introduce a finer-grained vma resource to for the non-1:1 
>> mapping. I also understand the asynchronous unbinding utilize the 
>> virtual address space more effectively. But my feeling is that this 
>> non-1:1 mapping makes our program hard to understand and maintain. 
>> Since this non- 1:1 mapping is introduced by asynchronous 
>> binding/unbinding, maybe the real question here is, is it really 
>> benefit to introduce asynchronous unbinding?
>
> That's a relevant question, which I've asked myself a couple of times. 
> Async unbinding has complicated things like error capture and indeed 
> complicates the understanding of the binding process as well.
>
> The main gain is that we avoid a sync point at LMEM eviction, enabling 
> us to pipeline eviction, moving forward it may also find use in the 
> shrinker and for user-space prematurely wanting to re-use softpin 
> addresses.
>
> /Thomas
>
>>
>> I am still not familiar enough to the codes. I suggest other experts 
>> to take a look also. @Bloomfield, Jon @Vetter, Daniel @Wilson, Chris P.

It might make sense here to point out as well that the direction from 
the arch team is towards moving towards gpu-writes of page-table entries 
for binding and unbinding, also keeping small PCI bars in mind, which 
will more or less force us to allow async unbinding for maintained 
performance.

/Thomas


>>
>> Regards,
>> Oak
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> /Thomas
>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Oak
>>>>
>>>>    If the
>>>>> vma is no longer alive, that means nobody uses it anymore, but the 
>>>>> GPU
>>>>> may still have work in the pipe that references the GPU virtual 
>>>>> address.
>>>>>
>>>>> /Thomas.
>>>>>