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From: Avi Kivity <avi@qumranet.com>
To: Dan Hecht <dhecht@vmware.com>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>, Zachary Amsden <zach@vmware.com>,
	jeremy@goop.org, avi@quramnet.com,
	kvm-devel@lists.sourceforge.net, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
	Glauber de Oliveira Costa <gcosta@redhat.com>,
	Glauber de Oliveira Costa <glauber@qumranet.com>,
	--cc@redhat.com, Garrett Smith <garrett@vmware.com>
Subject: Re: [kvm-devel] [PATCH] raise tsc clocksource rating
Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2007 06:24:56 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <4726B218.8010101@qumranet.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <47266B90.8000008@vmware.com>

Dan Hecht wrote:
> Not really.  In the case hardware TSC is perfect, the paravirt time 
> counter can be implemented directly in terms of hardware TSC; there is 
> no loss in optimization.  This is done transparently.  And virtual TSC 
> can be implemented this way too.
>
> The real improvement that a paravirt clocksource offers over the TSC 
> clocksource is that the guest does not need to measure the TSC frequency 
> itself against some other constant frequency source (which is 
> problematic on a virtual machine).  Instead, the paravirt clocksource 
> queries the hypervisor for the frequency of the counter.  As you know, 
> with clocksource style kernels, it's important to get this frequency 
> correct, or else the guest will have long-term time drift.
>
>   

In addition, a paravirt clocksource can compensate for events like vcpu 
migration to another host cpu.  So I agree: a paravirt clocksource is 
always better than or equal to the tsc.


-- 
Any sufficiently difficult bug is indistinguishable from a feature.


  reply	other threads:[~2007-10-30  4:26 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 29+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2007-10-29 23:10 [PATCH] raise tsc clocksource rating Glauber de Oliveira Costa
2007-10-29 22:17 ` Thomas Gleixner
2007-10-29 22:36   ` Ingo Molnar
2007-10-30  1:26   ` john stultz
2007-10-30  2:39   ` Rusty Russell
2007-10-30  7:37     ` Ingo Molnar
2007-10-30 10:52       ` Rusty Russell
2007-10-30 12:13       ` Glauber de Oliveira Costa
2007-10-29 22:42 ` Zachary Amsden
2007-10-29 22:45   ` Jeremy Fitzhardinge
2007-10-29 22:48   ` Ingo Molnar
2007-10-29 22:52     ` Jeremy Fitzhardinge
2007-10-29 22:55       ` Ingo Molnar
2007-10-29 23:17         ` Jeremy Fitzhardinge
2007-10-29 23:21           ` Ingo Molnar
2007-10-29 23:33             ` Jeremy Fitzhardinge
2007-10-30  0:45             ` Ian Pratt
2007-10-30  7:19               ` Ingo Molnar
2007-10-29 22:55     ` Zachary Amsden
2007-10-29 23:02       ` Ingo Molnar
2007-10-29 23:13         ` Zachary Amsden
2007-10-29 23:17           ` Ingo Molnar
2007-10-30 12:02           ` Glauber de Oliveira Costa
2007-10-30 17:58             ` Zachary Amsden
2007-10-29 23:24         ` Dan Hecht
2007-10-30  4:24           ` Avi Kivity [this message]
2007-10-30  7:14           ` Ingo Molnar
2007-10-30 11:59       ` Glauber de Oliveira Costa
2007-10-30  0:17 ` H. Peter Anvin

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