From: Zide Chen <zide.chen@intel.com>
To: Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>,
Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
Cc: kvm@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
Jim Mattson <jmattson@google.com>,
Mingwei Zhang <mizhang@google.com>,
Zide Chen <zide.chen@intel.com>,
Das Sandipan <Sandipan.Das@amd.com>,
Shukla Manali <Manali.Shukla@amd.com>,
Dapeng Mi <dapeng1.mi@linux.intel.com>,
Falcon Thomas <thomas.falcon@intel.com>,
Xudong Hao <xudong.hao@intel.com>
Subject: [PATCH 0/3] KVM: x86/pmu: Add hardware Topdown metrics support
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2026 15:06:03 -0800 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260226230606.146532-1-zide.chen@intel.com> (raw)
The Top-Down Microarchitecture Analysis (TMA) method is a structured
approach for identifying performance bottlenecks in out-of-order
processors.
Currently, guests support the TMA method by collecting Topdown events
using GP counters, which may trigger multiplexing. To free up scarce
GP counters, eliminate multiplexing-induced skew, and obtain coherent
Topdown metric ratios, it is desirable to expose fixed counter 3 and
the IA32_PERF_METRICS MSR to guests.
Several failed attempts have been made to virtualize this under the
legacy vPMU model: [1], [2], [3]. With the new mediated vPMU, enabling
TMA support in guests becomes much simpler. It avoids invasive changes
to the perf core, eliminates CPU pinning and fixed-counter affinity
issues, and reduces the overhead of trapping and emulating MSR accesses.
[1] https://lore.kernel.org/kvm/20231031090613.2872700-1-dapeng1.mi@linux.intel.com/
[2] https://lore.kernel.org/all/20230927033124.1226509-1-dapeng1.mi@linux.intel.com/T/
[3] https://lwn.net/ml/linux-kernel/20221212125844.41157-1-likexu@tencent.com/
Tested on an SPR. Without this series, only raw topdown.*_slots events
work in the guest, and metric events (e.g. cpu/topdown-bad-spec/) are
not available.
With this series, metric events are visible in the guest. Run this
command on both host and guest:
$ perf stat --topdown --no-metric-only -- taskset -c 2 perf bench sched messaging
Host results:
# Running 'sched/messaging' benchmark:
# 20 sender and receiver processes per group
# 10 groups == 400 processes run
Total time: 1.500 [sec]
Performance counter stats for 'taskset -c 2 perf bench sched messaging':
4,266,060,558 TOPDOWN.SLOTS:u # 32.0 % tma_frontend_bound
# 5.2 % tma_bad_speculation
588,397,905 topdown-retiring:u # 13.8 % tma_retiring
# 49.0 % tma_backend_bound
1,376,283,990 topdown-fe-bound:u
2,096,827,304 topdown-be-bound:u
217,425,841 topdown-bad-spec:u
5,050,520 INT_MISC.UOP_DROPPING:u
1.755503765 seconds time elapsed
0.235965000 seconds user
1.500508000 seconds sys
Guest results:
# Running 'sched/messaging' benchmark:
# 20 sender and receiver processes per group
# 10 groups == 400 processes run
Total time: 1.558 [sec]
Performance counter stats for 'taskset -c 2 perf bench sched messaging':
5,148,818,712 TOPDOWN.SLOTS:u # 34.0 % tma_frontend_bound
# 4.6 % tma_bad_speculation
602,862,499 topdown-retiring:u # 11.7 % tma_retiring
# 49.7 % tma_backend_bound
1,759,698,259 topdown-fe-bound:u
2,565,571,672 topdown-be-bound:u
230,277,308 topdown-bad-spec:u
4,966,279 INT_MISC.UOP_DROPPING:u
1.783366587 seconds time elapsed
0.313692000 seconds user
1.446377000 seconds sys
Dapeng Mi (2):
KVM: x86/pmu: Support Intel fixed counter 3 on mediated vPMU
KVM: x86/pmu: Support PERF_METRICS MSR in mediated vPMU
Zide Chen (1):
KVM: x86/pmu: Do not map fixed counters >= 3 to generic perf events
arch/x86/include/asm/kvm_host.h | 3 +-
arch/x86/include/asm/msr-index.h | 1 +
arch/x86/include/asm/perf_event.h | 1 +
arch/x86/kvm/pmu.c | 4 +++
arch/x86/kvm/vmx/pmu_intel.c | 57 ++++++++++++++++++++++++-------
arch/x86/kvm/vmx/pmu_intel.h | 5 +++
arch/x86/kvm/vmx/vmx.c | 6 ++++
arch/x86/kvm/x86.c | 10 ++++--
8 files changed, 71 insertions(+), 16 deletions(-)
--
2.53.0
next reply other threads:[~2026-02-26 23:14 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 9+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-02-26 23:06 Zide Chen [this message]
2026-02-26 23:06 ` [PATCH 1/3] KVM: x86/pmu: Do not map fixed counters >= 3 to generic perf events Zide Chen
2026-03-24 5:48 ` Mi, Dapeng
2026-03-27 20:53 ` Chen, Zide
2026-02-26 23:06 ` [PATCH 2/3] KVM: x86/pmu: Support Intel fixed counter 3 on mediated vPMU Zide Chen
2026-02-26 23:06 ` [PATCH 3/3] KVM: x86/pmu: Support PERF_METRICS MSR in " Zide Chen
2026-03-24 5:54 ` Mi, Dapeng
2026-03-27 20:23 ` Chen, Zide
2026-04-09 6:25 ` [PATCH 0/3] KVM: x86/pmu: Add hardware Topdown metrics support Mi, Dapeng
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
switches of git-send-email(1):
git send-email \
--in-reply-to=20260226230606.146532-1-zide.chen@intel.com \
--to=zide.chen@intel.com \
--cc=Manali.Shukla@amd.com \
--cc=Sandipan.Das@amd.com \
--cc=dapeng1.mi@linux.intel.com \
--cc=jmattson@google.com \
--cc=kvm@vger.kernel.org \
--cc=linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org \
--cc=mizhang@google.com \
--cc=pbonzini@redhat.com \
--cc=seanjc@google.com \
--cc=thomas.falcon@intel.com \
--cc=xudong.hao@intel.com \
/path/to/YOUR_REPLY
https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line
before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox