While testing an application using the xpmem (out of kernel) driver, we
noticed a significant page fault rate reduction of x86_64 with respect
to ia64. For one test running with 32 cpus, one thread per cpu, it
took 01:08 for each of the threads to vm_insert_pfn 2GB worth of pages.
For the same test running on 256 cpus, one thread per cpu, it took 14:48
to vm_insert_pfn 2 GB worth of pages.
The slowdown was tracked to lookup_memtype which acquires the
spinlock memtype_lock. This heavily contended lock was slowing down
vm_insert_pfn().
With the cmpxchg on page->flags method, both the 32 cpu and 256 cpu
cases take approx 00:01.3 seconds to complete.
Signed-off-by: Robin Holt <holt@sgi.com>
LKML-Reference: <20100423153627.751194346@gulag1.americas.sgi.com>
Cc: Venkatesh Pallipadi <venkatesh.pallipadi@gmail.com>
Cc: Rafael Wysocki <rjw@novell.com>
Reviewed-by: Suresh Siddha <suresh.b.siddha@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com>
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