[REPORT] [GSoC - TCG Continuous Benchmarking] [#7] Measuring QEMU Emulation Efficiency

[REPORT] [GSoC - TCG Continuous Benchmarking] [#7] Measuring QEMU Emulation Efficiency

[Ahmed Karaman]

Hi everyone,

The seventh report of the TCG Continuous Benchmarking series presents
a method for measuring the TCG emulation efficiency of QEMU for
seventeen different targets.

This is achieved by comparing the number of guest instructions
(running the program natively on the target) and the number of QEMU
instructions (running the program through QEMU). For each target, the
ratio between these two numbers presents a rough estimation of the
emulation efficiency for that target.

It's clearly shown in the report that the emulation efficiency for a
given target depends on the type of the program being emulated, for
that reason, six different benchmark programs are used to provide a
set of diverse workloads.

Report link:
https://ahmedkrmn.github.io/TCG-Continuous-Benchmarking/Measuring-QEMU-Emulation-Efficiency/

Previous reports:
Report 1 - Measuring Basic Performance Metrics of QEMU:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2020-06/msg06692.html
Report 2 - Dissecting QEMU Into Three Main Parts:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2020-06/msg09441.html
Report 3 - QEMU 5.0 and 5.1-pre-soft-freeze Dissect Comparison:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2020-07/msg01978.html
Report 4 - Listing QEMU Helpers and Function Callees:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2020-07/msg04227.html
Report 5 - Finding Commits Affecting QEMU Performance:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2020-07/msg05769.html
Report 6 - Performance Comparison of Two QEMU Builds:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2020-07/msg07389.html

Best regards,
Ahmed Karaman