From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Eduardo Habkost Subject: invtsc + migration + TSC scaling Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2016 18:20:31 -0300 Message-ID: <20161014212031.GQ3275@thinpad.lan.raisama.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Cc: Marcelo Tosatti , Paolo Bonzini To: qemu-devel@nongnu.org, kvm@vger.kernel.org Return-path: Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([209.132.183.28]:34202 "EHLO mx1.redhat.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S932853AbcJNVUe (ORCPT ); Fri, 14 Oct 2016 17:20:34 -0400 Content-Disposition: inline Sender: kvm-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: I have been wondering: should we allow live migration with the invtsc flag enabled, if TSC scaling is available on the destination? For reference, this is what the Intel SDM says about invtsc: The time stamp counter in newer processors may support an enhancement, referred to as invariant TSC. Processor’s support for invariant TSC is indicated by CPUID.80000007H:EDX[8]. The invariant TSC will run at a constant rate in all ACPI P-, C-. and T-states. This is the architectural behavior moving forward. On processors with invariant TSC support, the OS may use the TSC for wall clock timer services (instead of ACPI or HPET timers). TSC reads are much more efficient and do not incur the overhead associated with a ring transition or access to a platform resource. -- Eduardo