Re: [LKP] [drm/mgag200] 90f479ae51: vm-scalability.median -18.8% regression

[Feng Tang <feng.tang@intel.com>]

Hi Thomas,

On Thu, Aug 01, 2019 at 11:59:28AM +0200, Thomas Zimmermann wrote:
> Hi
> 
> Am 01.08.19 um 10:37 schrieb Feng Tang:
> > On Thu, Aug 01, 2019 at 02:19:53PM +0800, Rong Chen wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>> commit: 90f479ae51afa45efab97afdde9b94b9660dd3e4 ("drm/mgag200: Replace struct mga_fbdev with generic framebuffer emulation")
> >>>>>>>>>>> https://kernel.googlesource.com/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/next/linux-next.git master
> >>>>>>>>>> Daniel, Noralf, we may have to revert this patch.
> >>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>> I expected some change in display performance, but not in VM. Since it's
> >>>>>>>>>> a server chipset, probably no one cares much about display performance.
> >>>>>>>>>> So that seemed like a good trade-off for re-using shared code.
> >>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>> Part of the patch set is that the generic fb emulation now maps and
> >>>>>>>>>> unmaps the fbdev BO when updating the screen. I guess that's the cause
> >>>>>>>>>> of the performance regression. And it should be visible with other
> >>>>>>>>>> drivers as well if they use a shadow FB for fbdev emulation.
> >>>>>>>>> For fbcon we should need to do any maps/unamps at all, this is for the
> >>>>>>>>> fbdev mmap support only. If the testcase mentioned here tests fbdev
> >>>>>>>>> mmap handling it's pretty badly misnamed :-) And as long as you don't
> >>>>>>>>> have an fbdev mmap there shouldn't be any impact at all.
> >>>>>>>> The ast and mgag200 have only a few MiB of VRAM, so we have to get the
> >>>>>>>> fbdev BO out if it's not being displayed. If not being mapped, it can be
> >>>>>>>> evicted and make room for X, etc.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> To make this work, the BO's memory is mapped and unmapped in
> >>>>>>>> drm_fb_helper_dirty_work() before being updated from the shadow FB. [1]
> >>>>>>>> That fbdev mapping is established on each screen update, more or less.
> >>>>>>>> From my (yet unverified) understanding, this causes the performance
> >>>>>>>> regression in the VM code.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> The original code in mgag200 used to kmap the fbdev BO while it's being
> >>>>>>>> displayed; [2] and the drawing code only mapped it when necessary (i.e.,
> >>>>>>>> not being display). [3]
> >>>>>>> Hm yeah, this vmap/vunmap is going to be pretty bad. We indeed should
> >>>>>>> cache this.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> I think this could be added for VRAM helpers as well, but it's still a
> >>>>>>>> workaround and non-VRAM drivers might also run into such a performance
> >>>>>>>> regression if they use the fbdev's shadow fb.
> >>>>>>> Yeah agreed, fbdev emulation should try to cache the vmap.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> Noralf mentioned that there are plans for other DRM clients besides the
> >>>>>>>> console. They would as well run into similar problems.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>> The thing is that we'd need another generic fbdev emulation for ast and
> >>>>>>>>>> mgag200 that handles this issue properly.
> >>>>>>>>> Yeah I dont think we want to jump the gun here.  If you can try to
> >>>>>>>>> repro locally and profile where we're wasting cpu time I hope that
> >>>>>>>>> should sched a light what's going wrong here.
> >>>>>>>> I don't have much time ATM and I'm not even officially at work until
> >>>>>>>> late Aug. I'd send you the revert and investigate later. I agree that
> >>>>>>>> using generic fbdev emulation would be preferable.
> >>>>>>> Still not sure that's the right thing to do really. Yes it's a
> >>>>>>> regression, but vm testcases shouldn run a single line of fbcon or drm
> >>>>>>> code. So why this is impacted so heavily by a silly drm change is very
> >>>>>>> confusing to me. We might be papering over a deeper and much more
> >>>>>>> serious issue ...
> >>>>>> It's a regression, the right thing is to revert first and then work
> >>>>>> out the right thing to do.
> >>>>> Sure, but I have no idea whether the testcase is doing something
> >>>>> reasonable. If it's accidentally testing vm scalability of fbdev and
> >>>>> there's no one else doing something this pointless, then it's not a
> >>>>> real bug. Plus I think we're shooting the messenger here.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> It's likely the test runs on the console and printfs stuff out while running.
> >>>>> But why did we not regress the world if a few prints on the console
> >>>>> have such a huge impact? We didn't get an entire stream of mails about
> >>>>> breaking stuff ...
> >>>> The regression seems not related to the commit.  But we have retested
> >>>> and confirmed the regression.  Hard to understand what happens.
> >>> Does the regressed test cause any output on console while it's
> >>> measuring? If so, it's probably accidentally measuring fbcon/DRM code in
> >>> addition to the workload it's trying to measure.
> >>>
> >>
> >> Sorry, I'm not familiar with DRM, we enabled the console to output logs, and
> >> attached please find the log file.
> >>
> >> "Command line: ... console=tty0 earlyprintk=ttyS0,115200
> >> console=ttyS0,115200 vga=normal rw"
> > 
> > We did more check, and found this test machine does use the
> > mgag200 driver. 
> > 
> > And we are suspecting the regression is caused by 
> > 
> > commit cf1ca9aeb930df074bb5bbcde55f935fec04e529
> > Author: Thomas Zimmermann <tzimmermann@suse.de>
> > Date:   Wed Jul 3 09:58:24 2019 +0200
> 
> Yes, that's the commit. Unfortunately reverting it would require
> reverting a hand full of other patches as well.
> 
> I have a potential fix for the problem. Could you run and verify that it
> resolves the problem?

Sure, please send it to us. Rong and I will try it.

Thanks,
Feng


> Best regards
> Thomas
> 
> > 
> >     drm/fb-helper: Map DRM client buffer only when required
> >     
> >     This patch changes DRM clients to not map the buffer by default. The
> >     buffer, like any buffer object, should be mapped and unmapped when
> >     needed.
> >     
> >     An unmapped buffer object can be evicted to system memory and does
> >     not consume video ram until displayed. This allows to use generic fbdev
> >     emulation with drivers for low-memory devices, such as ast and mgag200.
> >     
> >     This change affects the generic framebuffer console. HW-based consoles
> >     map their console buffer once and keep it mapped. Userspace can mmap this
> >     buffer into its address space. The shadow-buffered framebuffer console
> >     only needs the buffer object to be mapped during updates. While not being
> >     updated from the shadow buffer, the buffer object can remain unmapped.
> >     Userspace will always mmap the shadow buffer.
> >  
> > which may add more load when fbcon is busy printing out messages.
> > 
> > We are doing more test inside 0day to confirm.
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > Feng
> > _______________________________________________
> > dri-devel mailing list
> > dri-devel@lists.freedesktop.org
> > https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel
> > 
> 
> -- 
> Thomas Zimmermann
> Graphics Driver Developer
> SUSE Linux GmbH, Maxfeldstrasse 5, 90409 Nuernberg, Germany
> GF: Felix Imendörffer, Mary Higgins, Sri Rasiah
> HRB 21284 (AG Nürnberg)
> 



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