Re: [PATCH 2/2] media: usb: pwc: Don't use coherent DMA buffers for ISO transfer

Christoph Hellwig
2018-08-05T10:45:20Z

On Sun, Aug 05, 2018 at 11:33:38AM +0300, Matwey V. Kornilov wrote:
> >> Taken together, those measurements look like a pretty good argument for
> >> always using dma_sync_single_for_cpu in the driver. Provided results
> >> on other platforms aren't too far out of line with these results.
> >
> > Logically speaking on no-mmio no-swiotlb platforms dma_sync_single_for_cpu
> > and dma_unmap should always be identical. With the migration towards
> > everyone using dma-direct and dma-noncoherent this is actually going to
> > be enforced, and I plan to move that enforcement to common code in the
> > next merge window or two.
> >
>
> I think that Alan means that using dma_sync_single_for_cpu() we save
> time required for subsequent dma_map() call (which is required when we
> do dma_unmap()).

The point still stands. By definition for a correct DMA API
implementation a dma_sync_single_for_cpu/dma_sync_single_for_device
pair is always going to be cheaper than a dma_unmap/dma_map pair,
although for many cases the difference might be so small that it is
not measureable.

If you reuse a buffer using dma_sync_single* is always the right thing
to do vs unmapping and remapping it.