diff mbox

[V3,3/9] cpufreq: Cap the default transition delay value to 10 ms

Message ID 1b93c94cb8b4914314e4f50304c3cb11c53d8b14.1500373914.git.viresh.kumar@linaro.org (mailing list archive)
State Mainlined
Delegated to: Rafael Wysocki
Headers show

Commit Message

Viresh Kumar July 19, 2017, 10:12 a.m. UTC
If transition_delay_us isn't defined by the cpufreq driver, the default
value of transition delay (time after which the cpufreq governor will
try updating the frequency again) is currently calculated by multiplying
transition_latency (nsec) with LATENCY_MULTIPLIER (1000) and then
converting this time to usec. That gives the exact same value as
transition_latency, just that the time unit is usec instead of nsec.

With acpi-cpufreq for example, transition_latency is set to around 10
usec and we get transition delay as 10 ms. Which seems to be a
reasonable amount of time to reevaluate the frequency again.

But for platforms where frequency switching isn't that fast (like ARM),
the transition_latency varies from 500 usec to 3 ms, and the transition
delay becomes 500 ms to 3 seconds. Of course, that is a pretty bad
default value to start with.

We can try to come across a better formula (instead of multiplying with
LATENCY_MULTIPLIER) to solve this problem, but will that be worth it ?

This patch tries a simple approach and caps the maximum value of default
transition delay to 10 ms. Of course, userspace can still come in and
change this value anytime or individual drivers can rather provide
transition_delay_us instead.

Signed-off-by: Viresh Kumar <viresh.kumar@linaro.org>
---
 drivers/cpufreq/cpufreq.c | 15 +++++++++++++--
 1 file changed, 13 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

Comments

Leonard Crestez July 25, 2017, 11:54 a.m. UTC | #1
On Wed, 2017-07-19 at 15:42 +0530, Viresh Kumar wrote:
> If transition_delay_us isn't defined by the cpufreq driver, the default
> value of transition delay (time after which the cpufreq governor will
> try updating the frequency again) is currently calculated by multiplying
> transition_latency (nsec) with LATENCY_MULTIPLIER (1000) and then
> converting this time to usec. That gives the exact same value as
> transition_latency, just that the time unit is usec instead of nsec.
> 
> With acpi-cpufreq for example, transition_latency is set to around 10
> usec and we get transition delay as 10 ms. Which seems to be a
> reasonable amount of time to reevaluate the frequency again.
> 
> But for platforms where frequency switching isn't that fast (like ARM),
> the transition_latency varies from 500 usec to 3 ms, and the transition
> delay becomes 500 ms to 3 seconds. Of course, that is a pretty bad
> default value to start with.
> 
> We can try to come across a better formula (instead of multiplying with
> LATENCY_MULTIPLIER) to solve this problem, but will that be worth it ?
> 
> This patch tries a simple approach and caps the maximum value of default
> transition delay to 10 ms. Of course, userspace can still come in and
> change this value anytime or individual drivers can rather provide
> transition_delay_us instead.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Viresh Kumar <viresh.kumar@linaro.org>
> ---
>  drivers/cpufreq/cpufreq.c | 15 +++++++++++++--
>  1 file changed, 13 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/drivers/cpufreq/cpufreq.c b/drivers/cpufreq/cpufreq.c
> index c426d21822f7..d00cde871c15 100644
> --- a/drivers/cpufreq/cpufreq.c
> +++ b/drivers/cpufreq/cpufreq.c
> @@ -532,8 +532,19 @@ unsigned int cpufreq_policy_transition_delay_us(struct cpufreq_policy *policy)
>  		return policy->transition_delay_us;
>  
>  	latency = policy->cpuinfo.transition_latency / NSEC_PER_USEC;
> -	if (latency)
> -		return latency * LATENCY_MULTIPLIER;
> +	if (latency) {
> +		/*
> +		 * For platforms that can change the frequency very fast (< 10
> +		 * us), the above formula gives a decent transition delay. But
> +		 * for platforms where transition_latency is in milliseconds, it
> +		 * ends up giving unrealistic values.
> +		 *
> +		 * Cap the default transition delay to 10 ms, which seems to be
> +		 * a reasonable amount of time after which we should reevaluate
> +		 * the frequency.
> +		 */
> +		return min(latency * LATENCY_MULTIPLIER, (unsigned int)10000);
> +	}
>  
>  	return LATENCY_MULTIPLIER;
>  }

This patch made it's way into linux-next and it seems to cause imx socs
to almost always hang around their max frequency with the ondemand
governor, even when almost completely idle. The lowest frequency is
never reached. This seems wrong?

This driver calculates transition_latency at probe time, the value is
not terribly accurate but it reaches values like latency = 109 us, so
this patch clamps it at about 10% of the value.

It's worth noting that the default IMX config has HZ=100 and
NO_HZ_IDLE=y, so maybe doing idle checks at a rate comparable to the
jiffie tick screws stuff up? I don't understand what ondemand is trying
to do.
Rafael J. Wysocki July 26, 2017, 12:19 a.m. UTC | #2
On Tuesday, July 25, 2017 02:54:46 PM Leonard Crestez wrote:
> On Wed, 2017-07-19 at 15:42 +0530, Viresh Kumar wrote:
> > If transition_delay_us isn't defined by the cpufreq driver, the default
> > value of transition delay (time after which the cpufreq governor will
> > try updating the frequency again) is currently calculated by multiplying
> > transition_latency (nsec) with LATENCY_MULTIPLIER (1000) and then
> > converting this time to usec. That gives the exact same value as
> > transition_latency, just that the time unit is usec instead of nsec.
> > 
> > With acpi-cpufreq for example, transition_latency is set to around 10
> > usec and we get transition delay as 10 ms. Which seems to be a
> > reasonable amount of time to reevaluate the frequency again.
> > 
> > But for platforms where frequency switching isn't that fast (like ARM),
> > the transition_latency varies from 500 usec to 3 ms, and the transition
> > delay becomes 500 ms to 3 seconds. Of course, that is a pretty bad
> > default value to start with.
> > 
> > We can try to come across a better formula (instead of multiplying with
> > LATENCY_MULTIPLIER) to solve this problem, but will that be worth it ?
> > 
> > This patch tries a simple approach and caps the maximum value of default
> > transition delay to 10 ms. Of course, userspace can still come in and
> > change this value anytime or individual drivers can rather provide
> > transition_delay_us instead.
> > 
> > Signed-off-by: Viresh Kumar <viresh.kumar@linaro.org>
> > ---
> >  drivers/cpufreq/cpufreq.c | 15 +++++++++++++--
> >  1 file changed, 13 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> > 
> > diff --git a/drivers/cpufreq/cpufreq.c b/drivers/cpufreq/cpufreq.c
> > index c426d21822f7..d00cde871c15 100644
> > --- a/drivers/cpufreq/cpufreq.c
> > +++ b/drivers/cpufreq/cpufreq.c
> > @@ -532,8 +532,19 @@ unsigned int cpufreq_policy_transition_delay_us(struct cpufreq_policy *policy)
> >  		return policy->transition_delay_us;
> >  
> >  	latency = policy->cpuinfo.transition_latency / NSEC_PER_USEC;
> > -	if (latency)
> > -		return latency * LATENCY_MULTIPLIER;
> > +	if (latency) {
> > +		/*
> > +		 * For platforms that can change the frequency very fast (< 10
> > +		 * us), the above formula gives a decent transition delay. But
> > +		 * for platforms where transition_latency is in milliseconds, it
> > +		 * ends up giving unrealistic values.
> > +		 *
> > +		 * Cap the default transition delay to 10 ms, which seems to be
> > +		 * a reasonable amount of time after which we should reevaluate
> > +		 * the frequency.
> > +		 */
> > +		return min(latency * LATENCY_MULTIPLIER, (unsigned int)10000);
> > +	}
> >  
> >  	return LATENCY_MULTIPLIER;
> >  }
> 
> This patch made it's way into linux-next and it seems to cause imx socs
> to almost always hang around their max frequency with the ondemand
> governor, even when almost completely idle. The lowest frequency is
> never reached. This seems wrong?
> 
> This driver calculates transition_latency at probe time, the value is
> not terribly accurate but it reaches values like latency = 109 us, so
> this patch clamps it at about 10% of the value.
> 
> It's worth noting that the default IMX config has HZ=100 and
> NO_HZ_IDLE=y, so maybe doing idle checks at a rate comparable to the
> jiffie tick screws stuff up? I don't understand what ondemand is trying
> to do.

I've dropped this commit from linux-next for now.

Thanks,
Rafael
diff mbox

Patch

diff --git a/drivers/cpufreq/cpufreq.c b/drivers/cpufreq/cpufreq.c
index c426d21822f7..d00cde871c15 100644
--- a/drivers/cpufreq/cpufreq.c
+++ b/drivers/cpufreq/cpufreq.c
@@ -532,8 +532,19 @@  unsigned int cpufreq_policy_transition_delay_us(struct cpufreq_policy *policy)
 		return policy->transition_delay_us;
 
 	latency = policy->cpuinfo.transition_latency / NSEC_PER_USEC;
-	if (latency)
-		return latency * LATENCY_MULTIPLIER;
+	if (latency) {
+		/*
+		 * For platforms that can change the frequency very fast (< 10
+		 * us), the above formula gives a decent transition delay. But
+		 * for platforms where transition_latency is in milliseconds, it
+		 * ends up giving unrealistic values.
+		 *
+		 * Cap the default transition delay to 10 ms, which seems to be
+		 * a reasonable amount of time after which we should reevaluate
+		 * the frequency.
+		 */
+		return min(latency * LATENCY_MULTIPLIER, (unsigned int)10000);
+	}
 
 	return LATENCY_MULTIPLIER;
 }