Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: [PATCH v3 64/75] x86/sev-es: Cache CPUID results for improved performance | From | Tom Lendacky <> | Date | Wed, 27 May 2020 12:49:06 -0500 |
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On 5/26/20 4:19 AM, Borislav Petkov wrote: > On Tue, May 19, 2020 at 10:16:37PM -0700, Sean Christopherson wrote: >> The whole cache on-demand approach seems like overkill. The number of CPUID >> leaves that are invoked after boot with any regularity can probably be counted >> on one hand. IIRC glibc invokes CPUID to gather TLB/cache info, XCR0-based >> features, and one or two other leafs. A statically sized global array that's >> arbitrarily index a la x86_capability would be just as simple and more >> performant. It would also allow fancier things like emulating CPUID 0xD in >> the guest if you want to go down that road. > > And before we do any of that "caching" or whatnot, I'd like to see > numbers justifying its existence. Because if it is only a couple of > CPUID invocations and the boot delay is immeasurable, then it's not > worth the effort.
I added some rudimentary stats code to see how many times there was a CPUID cache hit on a 64-vCPU guest during a kernel build (make clean followed by make with -j 64):
SEV-ES CPUID cache statistics 0x00000000/0x00000000: 220,384 0x00000007/0x00000000: 213,306 0x80000000/0x00000000: 1,054,642 0x80000001/0x00000000: 213,306 0x80000005/0x00000000: 210,334 0x80000006/0x00000000: 420,668 0x80000007/0x00000000: 210,334 0x80000008/0x00000000: 420,684
2,963,658 cache hits
So it is significant in quantity, but I'm not sure what the overall performance difference is. If I can find some more time I'll try to compare the kernel builds with and without the caching to see if it is noticeable.
Thanks, Tom
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