Thanks. Also, beyond a certain point, you have to consider whether just
setting timer_slop=2ms (or whatever) has similar effect on performance and
power saving, with no code modifications. :-) It's not like slop=1ms is some
super-special value or anything, arrived at with scientific exactitude.
But the approach I suggect at least seems internally consistent and I will
considewr it if it gives you similar power wins to what your original patch
gave you.
-- Keir
On 09/12/2009 12:34, "Wei, Gang" <gang.wei@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On a Xeon 5500 server w/ 2S/8C/16T, w/ HT off, starting 8 rhel5 UP hvm guests,
> idling, I saw 22W (10%) power saving after apply this patch and specify
> timer_slop=1ms on xen grub line. It saves 10W more than the case only specify
> timer_slop=1ms but w\o this patch.
>
> Yes, your suggestion do remove the double dipping. I will give it a try.
>
> Jimmy
>
> Keir Fraser wrote:
>> How much of a win is this? The per-cpu timer_deadline is already
>> calculated based on slop, so doing it again in hpet.c is kind of like
>> double dipping. I think we can validly do some improvements in hpet.c
>> however: e.g., by exposing a per-cpu timer deadline range
>> (deadline_start,deadline_end) and setting up HPET to fire on the
>> earliest deadline_end. Then broadcast to all CPUs with deadline_start
>> < NOW() when the HPET fires.
>>
>> The deadline range would be computed as follows in timer.c, in the
>> !ts->overflow case in the softirq handler:
>> timer_deadline_start = start (i.e., same as timer_deadline today)
>> timer_deadline_end = end
>> In the (incredibly uncommon) ts->overflow case we can just set
>> timer_deadline_start=timer_deadline_end=timer_deadline.
>>
>> Perhaps give that a go: I would find that more acceptable at least,
>> but all of this really depends on what benchmark improvements you are
>> seeing.
>>
>> -- Keir
>>
>> On 09/12/2009 09:33, "Wei, Gang" <gang.wei@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>> x86: add a range for hpet broadcast
>>>
>>> Apply a range timer like range to hpet broadcast, so that timer
>>> expires within timer_slop ns across idle CPUs are capable to be
>>> aligned to reduce hpet intrs, and save idle power.
>>>
>>> Signed-off-by: Wei Gang <gang.wei@xxxxxxxxx>
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