[PATCH v2 0/8] Add enlightenments for vGPU

Yu Zhang
2014-10-17T06:05:32Z

Intel GVT-g (previously known as XenGT), is a complete GPU
virtualization solution with mediated pass-through for 4th
generation Intel Core processors - Haswell platform. This
technology presents a virtual full-fledged GPU to each Virtual
Machine (VM). VMs can directly access performance-critical
resources, without intervention from the hypervisor in most
cases, while privileged operations from VMs are trap-and-emulated
at minimal cost. For detail, please refer to
https://01.org/xen/blogs/wangbo85/2014/intel-gvt-gxengt-pubic-release

This patch set includes necessary code changes when i915 driver
runs inside a VM. Though ideally we can run an unmodified i915
driver in VM, adding such enlightenments can greatly reduce the
virtualization complexity in orders of magnitude. Code changes
for the host side, which includes the actual Intel GVT-g
implementation, were sent out in another patchset.

The primary change introduced here is to implement so-called
"address space ballooning" technique. XenGT partitions global
graphics memory among multiple VMs, so each VM can directly
access a portion of the memory w/o hypervisor's intervention,
e.g. filling textures and queuing commands. However w/ the
partitioning an unmodified i915 driver would assume a smaller
graphics memory starting from address ZERO, so requires XenGT
core module (vgt) to translate the graphics address between
'guest view' and 'host view', for all registers and command
opcodes which contain a graphics memory address. To reduce the
complexity, XenGT introduces "address space ballooning", by
telling the exact partitioning knowledge to each guest i915
driver, which then reserves and prevents non-allocated portions
from allocation. Then vgt module only needs to scan and validate
graphics addresses w/o complexity of translation.

Note: The partitioning of global graphics memory may break some
applications, with large objects in the aperture, because current
userspace assumes half of the aperture usable. That would need
separate fix either in user space (e.g. remove assumption in mesa)
or in kernel (w/ some faulting mechanism).

The partitioning knowledge is conveyed through a reserved MMIO
range, called PVINFO, which will be architecturally reserved in
future hardware generations. Another information carried through
PVINFO is about the number of fence registers. As a global resource
XenGT also partitions them among VMs.

Other changes are trivial as optimizations, to either reduce the
trap overhead or disable power management features which don't
make sense in a virtualized environment.

Yu Zhang (8):
drm/i915: Introduce a PV INFO page structure for Intel GVT-g.
drm/i915: Adds graphic address space ballooning logic
drm/i915: Partition the fence registers for vgpu in i915 driver
drm/i915: Disable framebuffer compression for i915 driver in VM
drm/i915: Add the display switch logic for vgpu in i915 driver
drm/i915: Disable power management for i915 driver in VM
drm/i915: Create vgpu specific write MMIO to reduce traps
drm/i915: Support alias ppgtt in VM if ppgtt is enabled

drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_dma.c | 11 +++
drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_drv.h | 12 +++
drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_gem.c | 5 +
drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_gem_gtt.c | 186 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-
drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_vgt_if.h | 93 ++++++++++++++++++
drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_pm.c | 8 ++
drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_uncore.c | 22 +++++
7 files changed, 334 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
create mode 100644 drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_vgt_if.h

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1.9.1