Re: [RFC PATCH v1 00/11] Create fast idle path for short idle periods

Peter Zijlstra
2017-07-14T16:06:59Z

On Fri, Jul 14, 2017 at 08:53:56AM -0700, Andi Kleen wrote:
> > > - if (cpuidle_not_available(drv, dev)) {
> > > + if (cpuidle_not_available(drv, dev) || this_is_a_fast_idle) {
> > > default_idle_call();
> > > goto exit_idle;
> > > }
> >
> > No, that's wrong. We want to fix the normal C state selection process to
> > pick the right C state.
> >
> > The fast-idle criteria could cut off a whole bunch of available C
> > states. We need to understand why our current C state pick is wrong and
> > amend the algorithm to do better. Not just bolt something on the side.
>
> Fast idle uses the same predictor as the current C state governor.
>
> The only difference is that it uses a different threshold for C1.
> Likely that's the cause. If it was using the same threshold the
> decision would be the same.

Right, so its selecting C1 for longer. That in turn means we could now
never select C2; because the fast-idle threshold is longer than our C2
time.

Which I feel is wrong; because if we're getting C1 wrong, what says
we're then getting the rest right.

> The thresholds are coming either from the tables in intel idle,
> or from ACPI (let's assume the first)
>
> That means either: the intel idle C1 threshold on the system Aubrey
> tested on is too high, or the fast idle threshold is too low.

Or our predictor is doing it wrong. It could be its over-estimating idle
duration. For example, suppose we have an idle distribution of:

40% < C1
60% > C2

And we end up selecting C2. Even though in many of our sleeps we really
wanted C1.

And as said; Daniel has been working on a better predictor -- now he's
probably not used it on the network workload you're looking at, so that
might be something to consider.