Re: BFS vs. mainline scheduler benchmarks and measurements

[Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@arcor.de>]

On 09/08/2009 05:20 PM, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> On Tue, 08 Sep 2009 13:13:34 +0300
> Nikos Chantziaras<realnc@arcor.de>  wrote:
>
>> On 09/08/2009 11:38 AM, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
>>> On Tue, 08 Sep 2009 10:19:06 +0300
>>> Nikos Chantziaras<realnc@arcor.de>   wrote:
>>>
>>>> latencytop has this to say:
>>>>
>>>>      http://foss.math.aegean.gr/~realnc/pics/latop1.png
>>>>
>>>> Though I don't really understand what this tool is trying to tell
>>>> me, I hope someone does.
>>>
>>> despite the untranslated content, it is clear that you have
>>> scheduler delays (either due to scheduler bugs or cpu contention)
>>> of upto 68 msecs... Second in line is your binary AMD graphics
>>> driver that is chewing up 14% of your total latency...
>>
>> I've now used a correctly installed and up-to-date version of
>> latencytop and repeated the test.  Also, I got rid of AMD's binary
>> blob and used kernel DRM drivers for my graphics card to throw fglrx
>> out of the equation (which btw didn't help; the exact same problems
>> occur).
>>
>> Here the result:
>>
>>       http://foss.math.aegean.gr/~realnc/pics/latop2.png
>>
>> Again: this is on an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU.
>
>
> so we finally have objective numbers!
>
> now the interesting part is also WHERE the latency hits. Because
> fundamentally, if you oversubscribe the CPU, you WILL get scheduling
> latency.. simply you have more to run than there is CPU.

Sounds plausible.  However, with mainline this latency is very, very 
noticeable.  With BFS I need to look really hard to detect it or do 
outright silly things, like a "make -j50".  (At first I wrote "-j20" 
here but then went ahead an tested it just for kicks, and BFS would 
still let me use the GUI smoothly, LOL.  So then I corrected it to 
"-j50"...)