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Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2024 09:24:13 -0800
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Subject: Re: [PATCH] KVM: selftests: Test top-down slots event
From: Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>
To: Dapeng Mi <dapeng1.mi@linux.intel.com>
Cc: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>, kvm@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, 
	Kan Liang <kan.liang@linux.intel.com>, Jim Mattson <jmattson@google.com>, 
	Jinrong Liang <cloudliang@tencent.com>, Aaron Lewis <aaronlewis@google.com>, 
	Dapeng Mi <dapeng1.mi@intel.com>
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On Fri, Feb 02, 2024, Dapeng Mi wrote:
> 
> On 2/2/2024 2:02 AM, Sean Christopherson wrote:
> > On Thu, Feb 01, 2024, Dapeng Mi wrote:
> > > Although the fixed counter 3 and the exclusive pseudo slots events is
> > > not supported by KVM yet, the architectural slots event is supported by
> > > KVM and can be programed on any GP counter. Thus add validation for this
> > > architectural slots event.
> > > 
> > > Top-down slots event "counts the total number of available slots for an
> > > unhalted logical processor, and increments by machine-width of the
> > > narrowest pipeline as employed by the Top-down Microarchitecture
> > > Analysis method." So suppose the measured count of slots event would be
> > > always larger than 0.
> > Please translate that into something non-perf folks can understand.  I know what
> > a pipeline slot is, and I know a dictionary's definition of "available" is, but I
> > still have no idea what this event actually counts.  In other words, I want a
> > precise definition of exactly what constitutes an "available slot", in verbiage
> > that anyone with basic understanding of x86 architectures can follow after reading
> > the whitepaper[*], which is helpful for understanding the concepts, but doesn't
> > crisply explain what this event counts.
> > 
> > Examples of when a slot is available vs. unavailable would be extremely helpful.
> > 
> > [*] https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/docs/vtune-profiler/cookbook/2023-0/top-down-microarchitecture-analysis-method.html
> 
> Yeah, indeed, 'slots' is not easily understood from its literal meaning. I
> also took some time to understand it when I look at this event for the first
> time. Simply speaking, slots is an abstract concept which indicates how many
> uops (decoded from instructions) can be processed simultaneously (per cycle)
> on HW. we assume there is a classic 5-stage pipeline, fetch, decode,
> execute, memory access and register writeback. In topdown
> micro-architectural analysis method, the former two stages (fetch/decode) is
> called front-end and the last three stages are called back-end.
> 
> In modern Intel processors, a complicated instruction could be decoded into
> several uops (micro-operations) and so these uops can be processed
> simultaneously and then improve the performance. Thus, assume a processor
> can decode and dispatch 4 uops in front-end and execute 4 uops in back-end
> simultaneously (per-cycle), so we would say this processor has 4 topdown
> slots per-cycle. If a slot is spare and can be used to process new uop, we
> say it's available, but if a slot is occupied by a uop for several cycles
> and not retired (maybe blocked by memory access), we say this slot is stall
> and unavailable.

In that case, can't the test assert that the count is at least NUM_INSNS_RETIRED?
AFAIK, none of the sequences in the measured code can be fused, i.e. the test can
assert that every instruction requires at least one uop, and IIUC, actually
executing a uop requires an available slot at _some_ time.

diff --git a/tools/testing/selftests/kvm/x86_64/pmu_counters_test.c b/tools/testing/selftests/kvm/x86_64/pmu_counters_test.c
index ae5f6042f1e8..29609b52f8fa 100644
--- a/tools/testing/selftests/kvm/x86_64/pmu_counters_test.c
+++ b/tools/testing/selftests/kvm/x86_64/pmu_counters_test.c
@@ -119,6 +119,9 @@ static void guest_assert_event_count(uint8_t idx,
        case INTEL_ARCH_REFERENCE_CYCLES_INDEX:
                GUEST_ASSERT_NE(count, 0);
                break;
+       case INTEL_ARCH_TOPDOWN_SLOTS_INDEX:
+               GUEST_ASSERT(count >= NUM_INSNS_RETIRED);
+               break;
        default:
                break;
        }