On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 04:37:37PM +0200, Andrea Arcangeli wrote: > But I agree we need to verify it before taking a decision, and that > the numbers are better than theory, or to rephrase it "let's check the > theory is right" :)
Okay, microbenchmark: % cat test_memcmp.c #include <assert.h> #include <stdlib.h> #include <string.h> #define MB (1024ul * 1024ul) #define GB (1024ul * MB) int main(int argc, char **argv) { char *p; int i; posix_memalign((void **)&p, 2 * MB, 8 * GB); for (i = 0; i < 100; i++) { assert(memcmp(p, p + 4*GB, 4*GB) == 0); asm volatile ("": : :"memory"); } return 0; } huge zero page (initial implementation): Performance counter stats for './test_memcmp' (5 runs): 32356.272845 task-clock # 0.998 CPUs utilized ( +- 0.13% ) 40 context-switches # 0.001 K/sec ( +- 0.94% ) 0 CPU-migrations # 0.000 K/sec 4,218 page-faults # 0.130 K/sec ( +- 0.00% ) 76,712,481,765 cycles # 2.371 GHz ( +- 0.13% ) [83.31%] 36,279,577,636 stalled-cycles-frontend # 47.29% frontend cycles idle ( +- 0.28% ) [83.35%] 1,684,049,110 stalled-cycles-backend # 2.20% backend cycles idle ( +- 2.96% ) [66.67%] 134,355,715,816 instructions # 1.75 insns per cycle # 0.27 stalled cycles per insn ( +- 0.10% ) [83.35%] 13,526,169,702 branches # 418.039 M/sec ( +- 0.10% ) [83.31%] 1,058,230 branch-misses # 0.01% of all branches ( +- 0.91% ) [83.36%] 32.413866442 seconds time elapsed ( +- 0.13% ) virtual huge zero page (the second implementation): Performance counter stats for './test_memcmp' (5 runs): 30327.183829 task-clock # 0.998 CPUs utilized ( +- 0.13% ) 38 context-switches # 0.001 K/sec ( +- 1.53% ) 0 CPU-migrations # 0.000 K/sec 4,218 page-faults # 0.139 K/sec ( +- 0.01% ) 71,964,773,660 cycles # 2.373 GHz ( +- 0.13% ) [83.35%] 31,191,284,231 stalled-cycles-frontend # 43.34% frontend cycles idle ( +- 0.40% ) [83.32%] 773,484,474 stalled-cycles-backend # 1.07% backend cycles idle ( +- 6.61% ) [66.67%] 134,982,215,437 instructions # 1.88 insns per cycle # 0.23 stalled cycles per insn ( +- 0.11% ) [83.32%] 13,509,150,683 branches # 445.447 M/sec ( +- 0.11% ) [83.34%] 1,017,667 branch-misses # 0.01% of all branches ( +- 1.07% ) [83.32%] 30.381324695 seconds time elapsed ( +- 0.13% ) On Westmere-EX virtual huge zero page is ~6.7% faster. -- Kirill A. Shutemov
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