Hi! > >>1 HZ, which is the lowest granularity of non-highres timers in the > >>kernel, is variable as well as already too large of a delay for > >>effective TX coalescing. > >> > >>I seriously think that the TX coalescing support should be ripped out > >>or disabled entirely until it is implemented properly in this > >>driver. > > > >Ok, I'd disable coalescing, but could not figure it out till. What is > >generic way to do that? > > > >It seems only thing stmmac_tx_timer() does is calling > >stmmac_tx_clean(), which reclaims tx_skbuff[] entries. It should be > >possible to do that explicitely, without delay, but it stops working > >completely if I attempt to do that. > > > >On a side note, stmmac_poll() does stmmac_enable_dma_irq() while > >stmmac_dma_interrupt() disables interrupts. But I don't see any > >protection between the two, so IMO it could race and we'd end up > >without polling or interrupts... > > > the idea behind the TX mitigation is to mix the interrupt and > timer and this approach gave us real benefit in terms > of performances and CPU usage (especially on SH4-200/SH4-300 platforms > based).
Well, if you have a workload that sends and receive packets, it tends to work ok, as you do tx_clean() in stmmac_poll(). My workload is not like that -- it is "sending packets at 3MB/sec, receiving none". So the stmmac_tx_timer() is rescheduled and rescheduled and rescheduled, and then we run out of transmit descriptors, and then 40msec passes, and then we clean them. Bad. And that's why low-res timers do not cut it. > In the ring, some descriptors can raise the irq (according to a > threshold) and set the IC bit. In this path, the NAPI poll will be > scheduled. Not NAPI poll but stmmac_tx_timer(), right? > But there is a timer that can run (and we experimented that no high > resolution is needed) to clear the tx resources. > Concerning the lock protection, we had reviewed long time ago and > IIRC, no raise condition should be present. Open to review it, > again! Well, I certainly like the fact that we are talking :-). And yes, I have some questions. There's nothing that protect stmmac_poll() from running concurently with stmmac_dma_interrupt(), right? Best regards, Pavel -- (english) http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek (cesky, pictures) http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/picture/horses/blog.html
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