Skip to content
Commit 304bceda authored by Suresh Siddha's avatar Suresh Siddha Committed by H. Peter Anvin
Browse files

x86, fpu: use non-lazy fpu restore for processors supporting xsave



Fundamental model of the current Linux kernel is to lazily init and
restore FPU instead of restoring the task state during context switch.
This changes that fundamental lazy model to the non-lazy model for
the processors supporting xsave feature.

Reasons driving this model change are:

i. Newer processors support optimized state save/restore using xsaveopt and
xrstor by tracking the INIT state and MODIFIED state during context-switch.
This is faster than modifying the cr0.TS bit which has serializing semantics.

ii. Newer glibc versions use SSE for some of the optimized copy/clear routines.
With certain workloads (like boot, kernel-compilation etc), application
completes its work with in the first 5 task switches, thus taking upto 5 #DNA
traps with the kernel not getting a chance to apply the above mentioned
pre-load heuristic.

iii. Some xstate features (like AMD's LWP feature) don't honor the cr0.TS bit
and thus will not work correctly in the presence of lazy restore. Non-lazy
state restore is needed for enabling such features.

Some data on a two socket SNB system:
 * Saved 20K DNA exceptions during boot on a two socket SNB system.
 * Saved 50K DNA exceptions during kernel-compilation workload.
 * Improved throughput of the AVX based checksumming function inside the
   kernel by ~15% as xsave/xrstor is faster than the serializing clts/stts
   pair.

Also now kernel_fpu_begin/end() relies on the patched
alternative instructions. So move check_fpu() which uses the
kernel_fpu_begin/end() after alternative_instructions().

Signed-off-by: default avatarSuresh Siddha <suresh.b.siddha@intel.com>
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/1345842782-24175-7-git-send-email-suresh.b.siddha@intel.com
Merge 32-bit boot fix from,
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/1347300665-6209-4-git-send-email-suresh.b.siddha@intel.com


Cc: Jim Kukunas <james.t.kukunas@linux.intel.com>
Cc: NeilBrown <neilb@suse.de>
Cc: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: default avatarH. Peter Anvin <hpa@linux.intel.com>
parent 9c6ff8bb
0% or .
You are about to add 0 people to the discussion. Proceed with caution.
Finish editing this message first!
Please register or to comment