Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 16 Oct 2007 12:33:54 +0200 (CEST) | From | Mikulas Patocka <> | Subject | Re: LFENCE instruction (was: [rfc][patch 3/3] x86: optimise barriers) |
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On Tue, 16 Oct 2007, Nick Piggin wrote:
> > > The cpus also have an explicit set of instructions that deliberately do > > > unordered stores/loads, and s/lfence etc are mostly designed for those. > > > > I know about unordered stores (movnti & similar) --- they basically use > > write-combining method on memory that is normally write-back --- and they > > need sfence. But which one instruction does unordered load and needs > > lefence? > > Also, for non-wb memory. I don't think the Intel document referenced > says anything about this, but the AMD document says that loads can pass > loads (page 8, rule b). > > This is why our rmb() is still an lfence.
I see, AMD says that WC memory loads can be out-of-order.
There is very little usability to it --- framebuffer and AGP aperture is the only piece of memory that is WC and no kernel structures are placed there, so it is possible to remove that lfence.
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