Re: [PATCH] rtw88: pci: Use general byte arrays as the elements of RX ring

[Jian-Hong Pan <jian-hong@endlessm.com>]

David Laight <David.Laight@aculab.com> 於 2019年7月26日 週五 下午5:23寫道：
>
> From: Jian-Hong Pan
> > Sent: 26 July 2019 07:18
> ...
> > > While allocating all 512 buffers in one block (just over 4MB)
> > > is probably not a good idea, you may need to allocated (and dma map)
> > > then in groups.
> >
> > Thanks for reviewing.  But got questions here to double confirm the idea.
> > According to original code, it allocates 512 skbs for RX ring and dma
> > mapping one by one.  So, the new code allocates memory buffer 512
> > times to get 512 buffer arrays.  Will the 512 buffers arrays be in one
> > block?  Do you mean aggregate the buffers as a scatterlist and use
> > dma_map_sg?
>
> If you malloc a buffer of size (8192+32) the allocator will either
> round it up to a whole number of (often 4k) pages or to a power of
> 2 of pages - so either 12k of 16k.
> I think the Linux allocator does the latter.
> Some of the allocators also 'steal' a bit from the front of the buffer
> for 'red tape'.
>
> OTOH malloc the space 15 buffers and the allocator will round the
> 15*(8192 + 32) up to 32*4k - and you waste under 8k across all the
> buffers.
>
> You then dma_map the large buffer and split into the actual rx buffers.
> Repeat until you've filled the entire ring.
> The only complication is remembering the base address (and size) for
> the dma_unmap and free.
> Although there is plenty of padding to extend the buffer structure
> significantly without using more memory.
> Allocate in 15's and you (probably) have 512 bytes per buffer.
> Allocate in 31's and you have 256 bytes.
>
> The problem is that larger allocates are more likely to fail
> (especially if the system has been running for some time).
> So you almost certainly want to be able to fall back to smaller
> allocates even though they use more memory.
>
> I also wonder if you actually need 512 8k rx buffers to cover
> interrupt latency?
> I've not done any measurements for 20 years!

Thanks for the explanation.
I am not sure the combination of 512 8k RX buffers.  Maybe Realtek
folks can give us some idea.
Tony Chuang any comment?

Jian-Hong Pan