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Date:   Fri, 16 Aug 2019 14:55:48 +0800
From:   Feng Tang <feng.tang@intel.com>
To:     Thomas Zimmermann <tzimmermann@suse.de>
Cc:     Stephen Rothwell <sfr@canb.auug.org.au>, michel@daenzer.net,
        linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
        dri-devel <dri-devel@lists.freedesktop.org>,
        Noralf =?utf-8?Q?Tr=C3=B8nnes?= <noralf@tronnes.org>,
        Daniel Vetter <daniel@ffwll.ch>, lkp@01.org
Subject: Re: [LKP] [drm/mgag200] 90f479ae51: vm-scalability.median -18.8%
 regression
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Hi Thomas,

On Tue, Aug 13, 2019 at 05:36:16PM +0800, Feng Tang wrote:
> Hi Thomas, 
> 
> On Mon, Aug 12, 2019 at 03:25:45PM +0800, Feng Tang wrote:
> > Hi Thomas,
> > 
> > On Fri, Aug 09, 2019 at 04:12:29PM +0800, Rong Chen wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > > 
> > > >>Actually we run the benchmark as a background process, do we need to
> > > >>disable the cursor and test again?
> > > >There's a worker thread that updates the display from the shadow buffer.
> > > >The blinking cursor periodically triggers the worker thread, but the
> > > >actual update is just the size of one character.
> > > >
> > > >The point of the test without output is to see if the regression comes
> > > >from the buffer update (i.e., the memcpy from shadow buffer to VRAM), or
> > > >from the worker thread. If the regression goes away after disabling the
> > > >blinking cursor, then the worker thread is the problem. If it already
> > > >goes away if there's simply no output from the test, the screen update
> > > >is the problem. On my machine I have to disable the blinking cursor, so
> > > >I think the worker causes the performance drop.
> > > 
> > > We disabled redirecting stdout/stderr to /dev/kmsg,  and the regression is
> > > gone.
> > > 
> > > commit:
> > >   f1f8555dfb9 drm/bochs: Use shadow buffer for bochs framebuffer console
> > >   90f479ae51a drm/mgag200: Replace struct mga_fbdev with generic framebuffer
> > > emulation
> > > 
> > > f1f8555dfb9a70a2  90f479ae51afa45efab97afdde testcase/testparams/testbox
> > > ----------------  -------------------------- ---------------------------
> > >          %stddev      change         %stddev
> > >              \          |                \
> > >      43785                       44481
> > > vm-scalability/300s-8T-anon-cow-seq-hugetlb/lkp-knm01
> > >      43785                       44481        GEO-MEAN vm-scalability.median
> > 
> > Till now, from Rong's tests:
> > 1. Disabling cursor blinking doesn't cure the regression.
> > 2. Disabling printint test results to console can workaround the
> > regression.
> > 
> > Also if we set the perfer_shadown to 0, the regression is also
> > gone.
> 
> We also did some further break down for the time consumed by the
> new code.
> 
> The drm_fb_helper_dirty_work() calls sequentially 
> 1. drm_client_buffer_vmap	  (290 us)
> 2. drm_fb_helper_dirty_blit_real  (19240 us)
> 3. helper->fb->funcs->dirty()    ---> NULL for mgag200 driver
> 4. drm_client_buffer_vunmap       (215 us)
> 
> The average run time is listed after the function names.
> 
> From it, we can see drm_fb_helper_dirty_blit_real() takes too long
> time (about 20ms for each run). I guess this is the root cause
> of this regression, as the original code doesn't use this dirty worker.
> 
> As said in last email, setting the prefer_shadow to 0 can avoid
> the regrssion. Could it be an option?

Any comments on this? thanks

- Feng

> 
> Thanks,
> Feng
> 
> > 
> > --- a/drivers/gpu/drm/mgag200/mgag200_main.c
> > +++ b/drivers/gpu/drm/mgag200/mgag200_main.c
> > @@ -167,7 +167,7 @@ int mgag200_driver_load(struct drm_device *dev, unsigned long flags)
> >  		dev->mode_config.preferred_depth = 16;
> >  	else
> >  		dev->mode_config.preferred_depth = 32;
> > -	dev->mode_config.prefer_shadow = 1;
> > +	dev->mode_config.prefer_shadow = 0;
> > 
> > And from the perf data, one obvious difference is good case don't
> > call drm_fb_helper_dirty_work(), while bad case calls.
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > Feng
> > 
> > > Best Regards,
> > > Rong Chen
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