From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "Michael S. Tsirkin" Subject: Re: [PATCHv2-RFC 0/2] virtio: put last seen used index into ring itself Date: Mon, 31 May 2010 16:29:50 +0300 Message-ID: <20100531132950.GC1704@redhat.com> References: <4BFF9366.5090103@redhat.com> <20100530112220.GA27611@redhat.com> <4C0366E0.6040203@redhat.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: Rusty Russell , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, virtualization@lists.linux-foundation.org, kvm@vger.kernel.org, qemu-devel@nongnu.org To: Jes Sorensen Return-path: Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([209.132.183.28]:59056 "EHLO mx1.redhat.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753964Ab0EaNeo (ORCPT ); Mon, 31 May 2010 09:34:44 -0400 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <4C0366E0.6040203@redhat.com> Sender: kvm-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 09:36:00AM +0200, Jes Sorensen wrote: > On 05/30/10 13:22, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote: > > On Fri, May 28, 2010 at 11:56:54AM +0200, Jes Sorensen wrote: > >> It looks pretty good to me, however one thing I have been thinking of > >> while reading through it: > >> > >> Rather than storing a pointer within the ring struct, pointing into a > >> position within the same struct. How about storing a byte offset instead > >> and using a cast to get to the pointer position? That would avoid the > >> pointer dereference, which is less effective cache wise and harder for > >> the CPU to predict. > >> > >> Not sure whether it really matters performance wise, just a thought. > > > > I think this won't work: when PUBLUSH_USED_IDX is negotiated, > > the pointer is to within the ring. > > Hmmm shame, it would be a nice optimization. > > Maybe it's time to introduce the v2 ring format, rather than having > adding more kludges to the existing one? > > Cheers, > Jes There has been discussion about a ring format that does not use indexes at all. My guess is that would be a good point for v2 ring format. But making that a product and tuning might take a while. So definitely something to keep in mind but I would not want that to block this optimization. -- MST