2002-03-18 19:51:14

by Ed Vance

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Subject: PCI drivers - memory mapped vs. I/O ports

If a PCI device can be programmed equally well via I/O port space or memory
space, what are the reasons to chose one space over the other when writing
the driver?

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Ed Vance [email protected]
Macrolink, Inc. 1500 N. Kellogg Dr Anaheim, CA 92807
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2002-03-18 20:16:25

by Alan

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Subject: Re: PCI drivers - memory mapped vs. I/O ports

> If a PCI device can be programmed equally well via I/O port space or memory
> space, what are the reasons to chose one space over the other when writing
> the driver?

mmio is posted on a PC i/o ports are not. That means you have to be more
careful but also means that

write
write
write
read

is a lot faster

2002-03-18 20:36:27

by Richard B. Johnson

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Subject: Re: PCI drivers - memory mapped vs. I/O ports

On Mon, 18 Mar 2002, Ed Vance wrote:

> If a PCI device can be programmed equally well via I/O port space or memory
> space, what are the reasons to chose one space over the other when writing
> the driver?
>

o There is more 'memory' I/O space. Therefore you are more likely
to have enough space for your device when other boards are
installed. IOTW, you may find that there is no I/O space allocated
because there isn't any available.

o Memory address space I/O is faster on Intel Machines. You can
write or read whole buffers of I/O space in memory address space.
the best you can do in port space is one long-word at a time.

o PCI posted writes work when accessing memory-address I/O space.
Port I/O space cannot do this. The FIFO is written immediately
before any other access is allowed. This improves the access
speed in certain circumstances.

Basically, if you have a choice, it's hands-down to use memory-mapped
I/O space.

Cheers,
Dick Johnson

Penguin : Linux version 2.4.18 on an i686 machine (797.90 BogoMips).

Windows-2000/Professional isn't.

2002-03-19 02:18:35

by Jeff Garzik

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Subject: Re: PCI drivers - memory mapped vs. I/O ports

Richard B. Johnson wrote:

>On Mon, 18 Mar 2002, Ed Vance wrote:
>
>>If a PCI device can be programmed equally well via I/O port space or memory
>>space, what are the reasons to chose one space over the other when writing
>>the driver?
>>

>Basically, if you have a choice, it's hands-down to use memory-mapped
>I/O space.
>

Yep, I couldn't agree more.

Jeff