Re: [PATCH 01/14] Per zone counter functionality

Andi Kleen
2006-06-09T04:38:28Z

On Friday 09 June 2006 06:00, Andrew Morton wrote:
> On Thu, 8 Jun 2006 16:02:44 -0700 (PDT)
> Christoph Lameter <clameter@sgi.com> wrote:
>
> > Per zone counter infrastructure
> >
>
> Is the use of 8-bit accumulators more efficient than using 32-bit ones?
> Obviously it's better from a cache POV, given that we have a pretty large
> array of them. But is there a downside on some architectures in not using
> the natural wordsize?

Maybe on very old alphas which didn't have 8 bit stores. They need a RMW cycle.

Other than that i wouldn't expect any problems. RISCs will just do the usual
32bit add in registers, but do a 8bit load/store.

-Andi