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tickless and HZ=1000 throughput advantage?

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Daniel J Blueman

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Sep 19, 2009, 10:50:05 AM9/19/09
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On tickless kernels, is the general consensus that for non-embedded
systems, selecting HZ=1000 gives slightly more throughput in
particular situations than HZ=100 or 250, due to finer timer
intervals/granularity?

(low HZ used to cause problems with low-rate QoS packet queues when
timer scheduling was selected)

Thanks,
Daniel
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Daniel J Blueman
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Arjan van de Ven

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Sep 19, 2009, 11:00:13 AM9/19/09
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On Sat, 19 Sep 2009 15:47:24 +0100
Daniel J Blueman <daniel....@gmail.com> wrote:

> On tickless kernels, is the general consensus that for non-embedded
> systems, selecting HZ=1000 gives slightly more throughput in
> particular situations than HZ=100 or 250, due to finer timer
> intervals/granularity?

it's not about throughput. It's about latency for some things....
although now that select/poll and co use hrtimers it's not as critical
anymore.

the HZ timers aren't used much for anything time-critical nowadays.

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Arjan van de Ven Intel Open Source Technology Centre
For development, discussion and tips for power savings,
visit http://www.lesswatts.org

Daniel J Blueman

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Sep 19, 2009, 2:00:11 PM9/19/09
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On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 3:55 PM, Arjan van de Ven <ar...@infradead.org> wrote:
> On Sat, 19 Sep 2009 15:47:24 +0100
> Daniel J Blueman <daniel....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On tickless kernels, is the general consensus that for non-embedded
>> systems, selecting HZ=1000 gives slightly more throughput in
>> particular situations than HZ=100 or 250, due to finer timer
>> intervals/granularity?
>
> it's not about throughput. It's about latency for some things....
> although now that select/poll and co use hrtimers it's not as critical
> anymore.
>
> the HZ timers aren't used much for anything time-critical nowadays.

Agreed. Do you think there is still a small case for moving to HZ=1000
(given it's effectively free) in situations like:

jiffies_to_transmit = port->baud?(1 + charsleft * 10 * HZ / port->baud):0;

<applying plausible figures>
(gdb) p (1 + 10 * 10 * 1000 / 38400) * 1
$3 = 3
(gdb) p (1 + 10 * 10 * 250 / 38400) * 4
$5 = 4

-> HZ=250 causes a 33% longer sleep than expected

perhaps?
--
Daniel J Blueman

Ben Nizette

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Sep 19, 2009, 7:20:05 PM9/19/09
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On Sat, 2009-09-19 at 18:50 +0100, Daniel J Blueman wrote:

> Agreed. Do you think there is still a small case for moving to HZ=1000
> (given it's effectively free) in situations like:

Sure HZ=1000 gives you more accurate sleeps, that's kind of the point,
but since when has it been "effectively free"?
http://lwn.net/Articles/331607/

--Ben.

Tim Blechmann

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Sep 20, 2009, 3:40:05 AM9/20/09
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On 09/20/2009 01:12 AM, Ben Nizette wrote:
> On Sat, 2009-09-19 at 18:50 +0100, Daniel J Blueman wrote:
>
>> Agreed. Do you think there is still a small case for moving to HZ=1000
>> (given it's effectively free) in situations like:
>
> Sure HZ=1000 gives you more accurate sleeps, that's kind of the point,
> but since when has it been "effectively free"?
> http://lwn.net/Articles/331607/

i'd be curious, what effect does it have on userspace applications?
like, does it effect the wakeup latency of userspace (pthread)
mutexes/conditions or posix semaphores?

thnx, tim

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t...@klingt.org
http://tim.klingt.org

Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can
leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape.
William S. Burroughs

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Arjan van de Ven

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Sep 20, 2009, 3:50:05 AM9/20/09
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On Sun, 20 Sep 2009 09:34:30 +0200
Tim Blechmann <t...@klingt.org> wrote:

> On 09/20/2009 01:12 AM, Ben Nizette wrote:
> > On Sat, 2009-09-19 at 18:50 +0100, Daniel J Blueman wrote:
> >
> >> Agreed. Do you think there is still a small case for moving to
> >> HZ=1000 (given it's effectively free) in situations like:
> >
> > Sure HZ=1000 gives you more accurate sleeps, that's kind of the
> > point, but since when has it been "effectively free"?
> > http://lwn.net/Articles/331607/
>
> i'd be curious, what effect does it have on userspace applications?
> like, does it effect the wakeup latency of userspace (pthread)
> mutexes/conditions or posix semaphores?

the impact to userspace should be zero nowadays since select/poll/etc
moved to hrtimers, which are HZ-independent.

--
Arjan van de Ven Intel Open Source Technology Centre
For development, discussion and tips for power savings,
visit http://www.lesswatts.org

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