Hi Borislav,
On 06/05/2013 07:17 PM, Borislav Petkov wrote:
On Wed, Jun 05, 2013 at 07:01:25PM +0300, Stratos Karafotis wrote:
Ondemand calculates load in terms of frequency and increases it only
if the load_freq is greater than up_threshold multiplied by current
or average frequency. This seems to produce oscillations of frequency
between min and max because, for example, a relatively small load can
easily saturate minimum frequency and lead the CPU to max. Then, the
CPU will decrease back to min due to a small load_freq.
Right, and I think this is how we want it, no?
The thing is, the faster you finish your work, the faster you can become
idle and save power.
This is exactly the goal of this patch. To use more efficiently middle
frequencies to finish faster the work.
If you switch frequencies in a staircase-like manner, you're going to
take longer to finish, in certain cases, and burn more power while doing
so.
This is not true with this patch. It switches to middle frequencies
when the load < up_threshold.
Now, ondemand does not increase freq. CPU runs in lowest freq till the
load is greater than up_threshold.
Btw, racing to idle is also a good example for why you want boosting:
you want to go max out the core but stay within power limits so that you
can finish sooner.
This patch changes the calculation method of load and target frequency
considering 2 points:
- Load computation should be independent from current or average
measured frequency. For example an absolute load 80% at 100MHz is not
necessarily equivalent to 8% at 1000MHz in the next sampling interval.
- Target frequency should be increased to any value of frequency table
proportional to absolute load, instead to only the max. Thus:
Target frequency = C * load
where C = policy->cpuinfo.max_freq / 100
Tested on Intel i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz and on Quad core 1500MHz Krait.
Phoronix benchmark of Linux Kernel Compilation 3.1 test shows an
increase ~1.5% in performance. cpufreq_stats (time_in_state) shows
that middle frequencies are used more, with this patch. Highest
and lowest frequencies were used less by ~9%
I read this as "the workload takes longer to complete" which means
higher power consumption and longer execution times which means less
time spent in idle. And I don't think we want that.
Yes, no?
In my opinion, no.
Running the benchmark mentioned in changelog shows shorter execution
time by ~1.5%
Thanks,
Stratos
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