Aye, you're right, the results of cyclictest are completely different
when running as root, here's what I get as a normal user with
4.14.8-rt9-1-rt:
[gimmeapill@pill-mobile4 ~]$ cyclictest -S -m -p98
WARN: open /dev/cpu_dma_latency: Permission denied
policy: fifo: loadavg: 0.45 0.51 0.23 1/407 1048
T: 0 ( 1044) P:98 I:1000 C: 21816 Min: 2 Act: 9 Avg: 13
Max: 52
T: 1 ( 1045) P:98 I:1500 C: 14541 Min: 3 Act: 24 Avg: 14
Max: 58
T: 2 ( 1046) P:98 I:2000 C: 10903 Min: 3 Act: 15 Avg: 15
Max: 76
T: 3 ( 1047) P:98 I:2500 C: 8721 Min: 3 Act: 4 Avg: 15
Max: 65
and as root:
[root@pill-mobile4 gimmeapill]# cyclictest -S -m -p98
# /dev/cpu_dma_latency set to 0us
policy: fifo: loadavg: 0.35 0.49 0.22 1/407 1053
T: 0 ( 1050) P:98 I:1000 C: 12415 Min: 2 Act: 4 Avg: 3
Max: 13
T: 1 ( 1051) P:98 I:1500 C: 8272 Min: 2 Act: 4 Avg: 3
Max: 12
T: 2 ( 1052) P:98 I:2000 C: 6201 Min: 3 Act: 4 Avg: 3
Max: 13
T: 3 ( 1053) P:98 I:2500 C: 4958 Min: 3 Act: 4 Avg: 4
Max: 11
My previous tests where meant to compare the performance between RT
kernel versions (I just happened to have a root terminal open at that
time and didn't think further).
For that purpose it worked: I could see a slight degradation since
4.9.x., but yeah, that doesn't help to compare between different
systems, better run cyclictest as the audio user.
That difference when running as root is nevertheless puzzling, if these
results ever translate to real world audio performance, this is really bad.
I thought we were done with running audio applications as root for a
good 10 years, no?
Regarding the CPU difference: it's a notebook processor from 2012 with
turbo boost disabled and hyperthreading enabled, set to performance mode.
I wouldn't expect it to be fast by today's standards, or to be able to
compete core per core with a desktop class cpu of the same era:
https://ark.intel.com/products/65707/Intel-Core-i5-3317U-Processor-3M-Cache-up-to-2_60-GHz
https://ark.intel.com/products/80800/Intel-Celeron-Processor-G1840-2M-Cache-2_80-GHz
The single thread performance between those two is also really
different, so I wouldn't draw any conclusion regarding latency:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=816&cmp[]=2268
BR,
LX
PS: What does it all mean? A cheap Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU G1840 @
2.80GHz has got less latency, than a much more expensive Intel(R)
Core(TM) i5-3317U CPU @ 1.70GHz? How does it affect audio work? What is
the relevance of cyclictest? Is the result somehow related to audio
latency and/or MIDI jitter?
