Re: [Emc-users] Difficulty defining jitter, was Re: May be of Interest

2012-04-01 Thread Jon Elson
Kent A. Reed wrote:
>
> With a preempt_RT enabled kernel 2.6.33.7.2-rt30 and an appropriately 
> modified EMC2.4.4 [patches from Michael Büsch and Jeff Eppler] running 
> on an IBM Thinkpad T40 with a 1500MHz PentiumM cpu, the author measured 
> the following:
> -
> 1) the EMC2 latency-test
>
> Servo Thread: 1ms Max Jitter 261101ns
> Base Thread: 50us Max Jitter 101701ns
>
>   
Well, these are ghastly numbers!  The 1ms thread has jitter of 26% of 
the period, and
the 50us thread has jitter of 204% of the thread period!  That will 
cause system lockups,
I think.

Jon

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Re: [Emc-users] Difficulty defining jitter, was Re: May be of Interest

2012-04-01 Thread Kent A. Reed
On 4/1/2012 2:03 PM, Jon Elson wrote:
> Kent A. Reed wrote:
>> With a preempt_RT enabled kernel 2.6.33.7.2-rt30 and an appropriately
>> modified EMC2.4.4 [patches from Michael Büsch and Jeff Eppler] running
>> on an IBM Thinkpad T40 with a 1500MHz PentiumM cpu, the author measured
>> the following:
>> -
>> 1) the EMC2 latency-test
>>
>> Servo Thread: 1ms Max Jitter 261101ns
>> Base Thread: 50us Max Jitter 101701ns
>>
>>
> Well, these are ghastly numbers!  The 1ms thread has jitter of 26% of
> the period, and
> the 50us thread has jitter of 204% of the thread period!  That will
> cause system lockups,
> I think.
>
> Jon
>
I agree, Jon, but that's the different topic I alluded to at the end of 
my reply.

Whether preemption is the right approach or a Thinkpad laptop is the 
appropriate platform or an otherwise unmodified kernel/configuration is 
acceptable are all questions that I can't resolve without using the 
right tools to measure their performance. My point was only that this 
article clearly illustrates the tools differ even when assessing a 
single system so we have to be very careful comparing results measured 
using different tools on different systems.

As an aside, it was interesting to me that while the author of the 
bitmuster article made note of the fact that different tools reported 
different numbers, he/she seemed indifferent to the actual numbers reported.

Regards,
Kent


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Re: [Emc-users] Difficulty defining jitter, was Re: May be of Interest

2012-04-01 Thread Jon Elson
Kent A. Reed wrote:
>
> As an aside, it was interesting to me that while the author of the 
> bitmuster article made note of the fact that different tools reported 
> different numbers, he/she seemed indifferent to the actual numbers reported.
>
>   
Uhhh, why bother making a measurement if you have no idea what
the numbers mean?  Yeah, that may make the whole article suspect.

Jon

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Re: [Emc-users] Difficulty defining jitter, was Re: May be of Interest

2012-04-01 Thread Jack Coats
On Sun, Apr 1, 2012 at 6:15 PM, Jon Elson  wrote:
> Kent A. Reed wrote:
>>
>> As an aside, it was interesting to me that while the author of the
>> bitmuster article made note of the fact that different tools reported
>> different numbers, he/she seemed indifferent to the actual numbers reported.
>>
>>
> Uhhh, why bother making a measurement if you have no idea what
> the numbers mean?  Yeah, that may make the whole article suspect.
>
> Jon

I understand your thought.  But even if we don't know the chemistry
behind how the combustion in a car engine works, we can still use it
in a practical manner.

The same for using some of the numbers about latency, jitter, etc. in
tuning our CNC environments.  And IMHO, understanding what they mean
is easier than understanding the oxidation of organic molicules in a
semi-controlled environment (i.e. car engine) :)

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