diff mbox series

[RFC,net-next,3/3] mm: make zone->free_area[order] access faster

Message ID 161419301128.2718959.4838557038019199822.stgit@firesoul
State New
Headers show
Series Use bulk order-0 page allocator API for page_pool | expand

Commit Message

Jesper Dangaard Brouer Feb. 24, 2021, 6:56 p.m. UTC
Avoid multiplication (imul) operations when accessing:
 zone->free_area[order].nr_free

This was really tricky to find. I was puzzled why perf reported that
rmqueue_bulk was using 44% of the time in an imul operation:

       │     del_page_from_free_list():
 44,54 │ e2:   imul   $0x58,%rax,%rax

This operation was generated (by compiler) because the struct free_area have
size 88 bytes or 0x58 hex. The compiler cannot find a shift operation to use
and instead choose to use a more expensive imul, to find the offset into the
array free_area[].

The patch align struct free_area to a cache-line, which cause the
compiler avoid the imul operation. The imul operation is very fast on
modern Intel CPUs. To help fast-path that decrement 'nr_free' move the
member 'nr_free' to be first element, which saves one 'add' operation.

Looking up instruction latency this exchange a 3-cycle imul with a
1-cycle shl, saving 2-cycles. It does trade some space to do this.

Used: gcc (GCC) 9.3.1 20200408 (Red Hat 9.3.1-2)

Signed-off-by: Jesper Dangaard Brouer <brouer@redhat.com>
---
 include/linux/mmzone.h |    6 ++++--
 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

Comments

Mel Gorman Feb. 25, 2021, 11:28 a.m. UTC | #1
As a side-node, I didn't pick up the other patches as there is review
feedback and I didn't have strong opinions either way. Patch 3 is curious
though, it probably should be split out and sent separetly but still;

On Wed, Feb 24, 2021 at 07:56:51PM +0100, Jesper Dangaard Brouer wrote:
> Avoid multiplication (imul) operations when accessing:
>  zone->free_area[order].nr_free
> 
> This was really tricky to find. I was puzzled why perf reported that
> rmqueue_bulk was using 44% of the time in an imul operation:
> 
>        ???     del_page_from_free_list():
>  44,54 ??? e2:   imul   $0x58,%rax,%rax
> 
> This operation was generated (by compiler) because the struct free_area have
> size 88 bytes or 0x58 hex. The compiler cannot find a shift operation to use
> and instead choose to use a more expensive imul, to find the offset into the
> array free_area[].
> 
> The patch align struct free_area to a cache-line, which cause the
> compiler avoid the imul operation. The imul operation is very fast on
> modern Intel CPUs. To help fast-path that decrement 'nr_free' move the
> member 'nr_free' to be first element, which saves one 'add' operation.
> 
> Looking up instruction latency this exchange a 3-cycle imul with a
> 1-cycle shl, saving 2-cycles. It does trade some space to do this.
> 
> Used: gcc (GCC) 9.3.1 20200408 (Red Hat 9.3.1-2)
> 

I'm having some trouble parsing this and matching it to the patch itself.

First off, on my system (x86-64), the size of struct free area is 72,
not 88 bytes. For either size, cache-aligning the structure is a big
increase in the struct size.

struct free_area {
        struct list_head           free_list[4];         /*     0    64 */
        /* --- cacheline 1 boundary (64 bytes) --- */
        long unsigned int          nr_free;              /*    64     8 */

        /* size: 72, cachelines: 2, members: 2 */
        /* last cacheline: 8 bytes */
};

Are there other patches in the tree? What does pahole say?

With gcc-9, I'm also not seeing the imul instruction outputted like you
described in rmqueue_pcplist which inlines rmqueue_bulk. At the point
where it calls get_page_from_free_area, it's using shl for the page list
operation. This might be a compiler glitch but given that free_area is a
different size, I'm less certain and wonder if something else is going on.

Finally, moving nr_free to the end and cache aligning it will make the
started of each free_list cache-aligned because of its location in the
struct zone so what purpose does __pad_to_align_free_list serve?
Jesper Dangaard Brouer Feb. 25, 2021, 3:16 p.m. UTC | #2
On Thu, 25 Feb 2021 11:28:49 +0000
Mel Gorman <mgorman@techsingularity.net> wrote:

> As a side-node, I didn't pick up the other patches as there is review
> feedback and I didn't have strong opinions either way. Patch 3 is curious
> though, it probably should be split out and sent separetly but still;
> 
> On Wed, Feb 24, 2021 at 07:56:51PM +0100, Jesper Dangaard Brouer wrote:
> > Avoid multiplication (imul) operations when accessing:
> >  zone->free_area[order].nr_free
> > 
> > This was really tricky to find. I was puzzled why perf reported that
> > rmqueue_bulk was using 44% of the time in an imul operation:
> > 
> >        ???     del_page_from_free_list():
> >  44,54 ??? e2:   imul   $0x58,%rax,%rax
> > 
> > This operation was generated (by compiler) because the struct free_area have
> > size 88 bytes or 0x58 hex. The compiler cannot find a shift operation to use
> > and instead choose to use a more expensive imul, to find the offset into the
> > array free_area[].
> > 
> > The patch align struct free_area to a cache-line, which cause the
> > compiler avoid the imul operation. The imul operation is very fast on
> > modern Intel CPUs. To help fast-path that decrement 'nr_free' move the
> > member 'nr_free' to be first element, which saves one 'add' operation.
> > 
> > Looking up instruction latency this exchange a 3-cycle imul with a
> > 1-cycle shl, saving 2-cycles. It does trade some space to do this.
> > 
> > Used: gcc (GCC) 9.3.1 20200408 (Red Hat 9.3.1-2)
> >   
> 
> I'm having some trouble parsing this and matching it to the patch itself.
> 
> First off, on my system (x86-64), the size of struct free area is 72,
> not 88 bytes. For either size, cache-aligning the structure is a big
> increase in the struct size.

Yes, the increase in size is big. For the struct free_area 40 bytes for
my case and 56 bytes for your case.  The real problem is that this is
multiplied by 11 (MAX_ORDER) and multiplied by number of zone structs
(is it 5?).  Thus, 56*11*5 = 3080 bytes.

Thus, I'm not sure it is worth it!  As I'm only saving 2-cycles, for
something that depends on the compiler generating specific code.  And
the compiler can easily change, and "fix" this on-its-own in a later
release, and then we are just wasting memory.

I did notice this imul happens 45 times in mm/page_alloc.o, with this
offset 0x58, but still this is likely not on hot-path.

> struct free_area {
>         struct list_head           free_list[4];         /*     0    64 */
>         /* --- cacheline 1 boundary (64 bytes) --- */
>         long unsigned int          nr_free;              /*    64     8 */
> 
>         /* size: 72, cachelines: 2, members: 2 */
>         /* last cacheline: 8 bytes */
> };
> 
> Are there other patches in the tree? What does pahole say?

The size of size of struct free_area varies based on some CONFIG
setting, as free_list[] array size is determined by MIGRATE_TYPES,
which on my system is 5, and not 4 as on your system.

  struct list_head	free_list[MIGRATE_TYPES];

CONFIG_CMA and CONFIG_MEMORY_ISOLATION both increase MIGRATE_TYPES with one.
Thus, the array size can vary from 4 to 6.


> With gcc-9, I'm also not seeing the imul instruction outputted like you
> described in rmqueue_pcplist which inlines rmqueue_bulk. At the point
> where it calls get_page_from_free_area, it's using shl for the page list
> operation. This might be a compiler glitch but given that free_area is a
> different size, I'm less certain and wonder if something else is going on.

I think it is the size variation.

> Finally, moving nr_free to the end and cache aligning it will make the
> started of each free_list cache-aligned because of its location in the
> struct zone so what purpose does __pad_to_align_free_list serve?

The purpose of purpose of __pad_to_align_free_list is because struct
list_head is 16 bytes, thus I wanted to align free_list to 16, given we
already have wasted the space.

Notice I added some more detailed notes in[1]:

 [1] https://github.com/xdp-project/xdp-project/blob/master/areas/mem/page_pool06_alloc_pages_bulk.org#micro-optimisations
Jesper Dangaard Brouer Feb. 26, 2021, 2:34 p.m. UTC | #3
On Thu, 25 Feb 2021 15:38:15 +0000
Mel Gorman <mgorman@techsingularity.net> wrote:

> On Thu, Feb 25, 2021 at 04:16:33PM +0100, Jesper Dangaard Brouer wrote:

> > > On Wed, Feb 24, 2021 at 07:56:51PM +0100, Jesper Dangaard Brouer wrote:  

> > > > Avoid multiplication (imul) operations when accessing:

> > > >  zone->free_area[order].nr_free

> > > > 

> > > > This was really tricky to find. I was puzzled why perf reported that

> > > > rmqueue_bulk was using 44% of the time in an imul operation:

> > > > 

> > > >        ???     del_page_from_free_list():

> > > >  44,54 ??? e2:   imul   $0x58,%rax,%rax

> > > > 

> > > > This operation was generated (by compiler) because the struct free_area have

> > > > size 88 bytes or 0x58 hex. The compiler cannot find a shift operation to use

> > > > and instead choose to use a more expensive imul, to find the offset into the

> > > > array free_area[].

> > > > 

> > > > The patch align struct free_area to a cache-line, which cause the

> > > > compiler avoid the imul operation. The imul operation is very fast on

> > > > modern Intel CPUs. To help fast-path that decrement 'nr_free' move the

> > > > member 'nr_free' to be first element, which saves one 'add' operation.

> > > > 

> > > > Looking up instruction latency this exchange a 3-cycle imul with a

> > > > 1-cycle shl, saving 2-cycles. It does trade some space to do this.

> > > > 

> > > > Used: gcc (GCC) 9.3.1 20200408 (Red Hat 9.3.1-2)

> > > >     

> > > 

> > > I'm having some trouble parsing this and matching it to the patch itself.

> > > 

> > > First off, on my system (x86-64), the size of struct free area is 72,

> > > not 88 bytes. For either size, cache-aligning the structure is a big

> > > increase in the struct size.  

> > 

> > Yes, the increase in size is big. For the struct free_area 40 bytes for

> > my case and 56 bytes for your case.  The real problem is that this is

> > multiplied by 11 (MAX_ORDER) and multiplied by number of zone structs

> > (is it 5?).  Thus, 56*11*5 = 3080 bytes.

> > 

> > Thus, I'm not sure it is worth it!  As I'm only saving 2-cycles, for

> > something that depends on the compiler generating specific code.  And

> > the compiler can easily change, and "fix" this on-its-own in a later

> > release, and then we are just wasting memory.

> > 

> > I did notice this imul happens 45 times in mm/page_alloc.o, with this

> > offset 0x58, but still this is likely not on hot-path.

> >   

> 

> Yeah, I'm not convinced it's worth it. The benefit of 2 cycles is small and

> it's config-dependant. While some configurations will benefit, others do

> not but the increased consumption is universal. I think there are better

> ways to save 2 cycles in the page allocator and this seems like a costly

> micro-optimisation.

> 

> > > <SNIP>

> > >

> > > With gcc-9, I'm also not seeing the imul instruction outputted like you

> > > described in rmqueue_pcplist which inlines rmqueue_bulk. At the point

> > > where it calls get_page_from_free_area, it's using shl for the page list

> > > operation. This might be a compiler glitch but given that free_area is a

> > > different size, I'm less certain and wonder if something else is going on.  

> > 

> > I think it is the size variation.

> >   

> 

> Yes.

> 

> > > Finally, moving nr_free to the end and cache aligning it will make the

> > > started of each free_list cache-aligned because of its location in the

> > > struct zone so what purpose does __pad_to_align_free_list serve?  

> > 

> > The purpose of purpose of __pad_to_align_free_list is because struct

> > list_head is 16 bytes, thus I wanted to align free_list to 16, given we

> > already have wasted the space.

> >   

> 

> Ok, that's fair enough but it's also somewhat of a micro-optimisation as

> whether it helps or not depends on the architecture.

> 

> I don't think I'll pick this up, certainly in the context of the bulk

> allocator but it's worth keeping in mind. It's an interesting corner case

> at least.


I fully agree. Lets drop this patch.

-- 
Best regards,
  Jesper Dangaard Brouer
  MSc.CS, Principal Kernel Engineer at Red Hat
  LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/brouer
diff mbox series

Patch

diff --git a/include/linux/mmzone.h b/include/linux/mmzone.h
index b593316bff3d..4d83201717e1 100644
--- a/include/linux/mmzone.h
+++ b/include/linux/mmzone.h
@@ -93,10 +93,12 @@  extern int page_group_by_mobility_disabled;
 #define get_pageblock_migratetype(page)					\
 	get_pfnblock_flags_mask(page, page_to_pfn(page), MIGRATETYPE_MASK)
 
+/* Aligned struct to make zone->free_area[order] access faster */
 struct free_area {
-	struct list_head	free_list[MIGRATE_TYPES];
 	unsigned long		nr_free;
-};
+	unsigned long		__pad_to_align_free_list;
+	struct list_head	free_list[MIGRATE_TYPES];
+}  ____cacheline_aligned_in_smp;
 
 static inline struct page *get_page_from_free_area(struct free_area *area,
 					    int migratetype)