by all means... I'd love to try it... Robert Hyatt Computer and Information Sciences [EMAIL PROTECTED] University of Alabama at Birmingham (205) 934-2213 115A Campbell Hall, UAB Station (205) 934-5473 FAX Birmingham, AL 35294-1170 On Sat, 30 Jan 1999, Richard Gooch wrote: > Emil Briggs writes: > > > > > >> The huge increase probably comes from the facts that > > >> x11amp is switching CPU too often and the more > > >> primitive L2 cache mapping on Neptune boards. > > > > > >Well CPU switching doesn't explain my observations as I have lots of > > >instances of seeing it on UP machines. > > > > > >Dunno about the cache issues - to be honest I don't know why different > > >page layouts in physical RAM makes such a big difference... > > > > > Maybe TLB misses? > > That's what I thought, but it was pointed out to me that TLB refils > for x86 are done in hardware and are pretty fast. Upon investigation > it turned out to be L2 cache misses due to cache line aliasing. > Note that the cache will cache physical memory, hence the layout of > physical pages matters much. > > The solution: page colouring (thanks to DaveM for his tips). I tried > that and it works. The patch is crude and can slow down process > startup times, and it requires a system with plenty of RAM to spare, > but it does work. If people want to try this, I could be encouraged to > post a patch. > > Regards, > > Richard.... > - > Linux SMP list: FIRST see FAQ at http://www.irisa.fr/prive/mentre/smp-faq/ > To Unsubscribe: send "unsubscribe linux-smp" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > - Linux SMP list: FIRST see FAQ at http://www.irisa.fr/prive/mentre/smp-faq/ To Unsubscribe: send "unsubscribe linux-smp" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
