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From: "Richardson, Bruce" <bruce.richardson@intel.com>
To: Neil Horman <nhorman@tuxdriver.com>
Cc: "dev@dpdk.org" <dev@dpdk.org>
Subject: Re: [dpdk-dev] [PATCH 2/5] ixgbe: add prefetch to improve slow-path tx perf
Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2014 15:35:19 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <59AF69C657FD0841A61C55336867B5B0343F2EEA@IRSMSX103.ger.corp.intel.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20140917152103.GE4213@localhost.localdomain>


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Neil Horman [mailto:nhorman@tuxdriver.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2014 4:21 PM
> To: Richardson, Bruce
> Cc: dev@dpdk.org
> Subject: Re: [dpdk-dev] [PATCH 2/5] ixgbe: add prefetch to improve slow-path tx
> perf
> 
> On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 11:01:39AM +0100, Bruce Richardson wrote:
> > Make a small improvement to slow path TX performance by adding in a
> > prefetch for the second mbuf cache line.
> > Also move assignment of l2/l3 length values only when needed.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Bruce Richardson <bruce.richardson@intel.com>
> > ---
> >  lib/librte_pmd_ixgbe/ixgbe_rxtx.c | 12 +++++++-----
> >  1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
> >
> > diff --git a/lib/librte_pmd_ixgbe/ixgbe_rxtx.c
> b/lib/librte_pmd_ixgbe/ixgbe_rxtx.c
> > index 6f702b3..c0bb49f 100644
> > --- a/lib/librte_pmd_ixgbe/ixgbe_rxtx.c
> > +++ b/lib/librte_pmd_ixgbe/ixgbe_rxtx.c
> > @@ -565,25 +565,26 @@ ixgbe_xmit_pkts(void *tx_queue, struct rte_mbuf
> **tx_pkts,
> >  		ixgbe_xmit_cleanup(txq);
> >  	}
> >
> > +	rte_prefetch0(&txe->mbuf->pool);
> > +
> 
> Can you explain what all of these prefetches are doing?  It looks to me like
> they're just fetching the first caheline of the mempool structure, which it
> appears amounts to the pools name.  I don't see that having any use here.
> 
This does make a decent enough performance difference in my tests (the amount varies depending on the RX path being used by testpmd). 

What I've done with the prefetches is two-fold:
1) changed it from prefetching the mbuf (first cache line) to prefetching the mbuf pool pointer (second cache line) so that when we go to access the pool pointer to free transmitted mbufs we don't get a cache miss. When clearing the ring and freeing mbufs, the pool pointer is the only mbuf field used, so we don't need that first cache line.
2) changed the code to prefetch earlier - in effect to prefetch one mbuf ahead. The original code prefetched the mbuf to be freed as soon as it started processing the mbuf to replace it. Instead now, every time we calculate what the next mbuf position is going to be we prefetch the mbuf in that position (i.e. the mbuf pool pointer we are going to free the mbuf to), even while we are still updating the previous mbuf slot on the ring. This gives the prefetch much more time to resolve and get the data we need in the cache before we need it.

Hope this clarifies things.

/Bruce

  reply	other threads:[~2014-09-17 15:33 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 39+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2014-09-17 10:01 [dpdk-dev] [PATCH 0/5] Mbuf Structure Rework, part 3 Bruce Richardson
2014-09-17 10:01 ` [dpdk-dev] [PATCH 1/5] mbuf: ensure next pointer is set to null on free Bruce Richardson
2014-09-17 10:01 ` [dpdk-dev] [PATCH 2/5] ixgbe: add prefetch to improve slow-path tx perf Bruce Richardson
2014-09-17 15:21   ` Neil Horman
2014-09-17 15:35     ` Richardson, Bruce [this message]
2014-09-17 17:59       ` Neil Horman
2014-09-18 13:36         ` Bruce Richardson
2014-09-18 15:29           ` Neil Horman
2014-09-18 15:42             ` Bruce Richardson
2014-09-18 17:56               ` Neil Horman
2014-09-17 10:01 ` [dpdk-dev] [PATCH 3/5] testpmd: Change rxfreet default to 32 Bruce Richardson
2014-09-17 15:29   ` Neil Horman
2014-09-18 15:53     ` Richardson, Bruce
2014-09-18 17:13       ` Thomas Monjalon
2014-09-18 18:08         ` Neil Horman
2014-09-19  9:18           ` Richardson, Bruce
2014-09-19 10:24             ` Neil Horman
2014-09-19 10:28               ` Richardson, Bruce
2014-09-19 15:18                 ` Neil Horman
2014-09-18 18:03       ` Neil Horman
2014-09-17 10:01 ` [dpdk-dev] [PATCH 4/5] mbuf: add userdata pointer field Bruce Richardson
2014-09-17 15:35   ` Neil Horman
2014-09-17 16:02     ` Richardson, Bruce
2014-09-17 18:29       ` Neil Horman
2014-09-17 10:01 ` [dpdk-dev] [PATCH 5/5] mbuf: Add in second vlan tag field to mbuf Bruce Richardson
2014-09-17 20:46   ` Stephen Hemminger
2014-09-23 11:08 ` [dpdk-dev] [PATCH v2 0/5] Mbuf Structure Rework, part 3 Bruce Richardson
2014-09-23 11:08   ` [dpdk-dev] [PATCH v2 1/5] mbuf: ensure next pointer is set to null on free Bruce Richardson
2014-09-23 11:08   ` [dpdk-dev] [PATCH v2 2/5] ixgbe: add prefetch to improve slow-path tx perf Bruce Richardson
2014-09-23 11:08   ` [dpdk-dev] [PATCH v2 3/5] testpmd: Change rxfreet default to 32 Bruce Richardson
2014-09-23 17:02     ` Neil Horman
2014-09-24  9:03       ` Richardson, Bruce
2014-09-24 10:05         ` Neil Horman
2014-11-07 12:30         ` Thomas Monjalon
2014-11-07 13:49           ` Bruce Richardson
2014-09-23 11:08   ` [dpdk-dev] [PATCH v2 4/5] mbuf: add userdata pointer field Bruce Richardson
2014-09-23 11:08   ` [dpdk-dev] [PATCH v2 5/5] mbuf: switch vlan_tci and reserved2 fields Bruce Richardson
2014-09-29 15:58   ` [dpdk-dev] [PATCH v2 0/5] Mbuf Structure Rework, part 3 De Lara Guarch, Pablo
2014-10-08 12:31     ` Thomas Monjalon

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