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diff --git a/tools/perf/Documentation/topdown.txt b/tools/perf/Documentation/topdown.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000..3c39bb3dc --- /dev/null +++ b/tools/perf/Documentation/topdown.txt @@ -0,0 +1,256 @@ +Using TopDown metrics in user space +----------------------------------- + +Intel CPUs (since Sandy Bridge and Silvermont) support a TopDown +methology to break down CPU pipeline execution into 4 bottlenecks: +frontend bound, backend bound, bad speculation, retiring. + +For more details on Topdown see [1][5] + +Traditionally this was implemented by events in generic counters +and specific formulas to compute the bottlenecks. + +perf stat --topdown implements this. + +Full Top Down includes more levels that can break down the +bottlenecks further. This is not directly implemented in perf, +but available in other tools that can run on top of perf, +such as toplev[2] or vtune[3] + +New Topdown features in Ice Lake +=============================== + +With Ice Lake CPUs the TopDown metrics are directly available as +fixed counters and do not require generic counters. This allows +to collect TopDown always in addition to other events. + +% perf stat -a --topdown -I1000 +# time retiring bad speculation frontend bound backend bound + 1.001281330 23.0% 15.3% 29.6% 32.1% + 2.003009005 5.0% 6.8% 46.6% 41.6% + 3.004646182 6.7% 6.7% 46.0% 40.6% + 4.006326375 5.0% 6.4% 47.6% 41.0% + 5.007991804 5.1% 6.3% 46.3% 42.3% + 6.009626773 6.2% 7.1% 47.3% 39.3% + 7.011296356 4.7% 6.7% 46.2% 42.4% + 8.012951831 4.7% 6.7% 47.5% 41.1% +... + +This also enables measuring TopDown per thread/process instead +of only per core. + +Using TopDown through RDPMC in applications on Ice Lake +====================================================== + +For more fine grained measurements it can be useful to +access the new directly from user space. This is more complicated, +but drastically lowers overhead. + +On Ice Lake, there is a new fixed counter 3: SLOTS, which reports +"pipeline SLOTS" (cycles multiplied by core issue width) and a +metric register that reports slots ratios for the different bottleneck +categories. + +The metrics counter is CPU model specific and is not available on older +CPUs. + +Example code +============ + +Library functions to do the functionality described below +is also available in libjevents [4] + +The application opens a group with fixed counter 3 (SLOTS) and any +metric event, and allow user programs to read the performance counters. + +Fixed counter 3 is mapped to a pseudo event event=0x00, umask=04, +so the perf_event_attr structure should be initialized with +{ .config = 0x0400, .type = PERF_TYPE_RAW } +The metric events are mapped to the pseudo event event=0x00, umask=0x8X. +For example, the perf_event_attr structure can be initialized with +{ .config = 0x8000, .type = PERF_TYPE_RAW } for Retiring metric event +The Fixed counter 3 must be the leader of the group. + +#include <linux/perf_event.h> +#include <sys/syscall.h> +#include <unistd.h> + +/* Provide own perf_event_open stub because glibc doesn't */ +__attribute__((weak)) +int perf_event_open(struct perf_event_attr *attr, pid_t pid, + int cpu, int group_fd, unsigned long flags) +{ + return syscall(__NR_perf_event_open, attr, pid, cpu, group_fd, flags); +} + +/* Open slots counter file descriptor for current task. */ +struct perf_event_attr slots = { + .type = PERF_TYPE_RAW, + .size = sizeof(struct perf_event_attr), + .config = 0x400, + .exclude_kernel = 1, +}; + +int slots_fd = perf_event_open(&slots, 0, -1, -1, 0); +if (slots_fd < 0) + ... error ... + +/* + * Open metrics event file descriptor for current task. + * Set slots event as the leader of the group. + */ +struct perf_event_attr metrics = { + .type = PERF_TYPE_RAW, + .size = sizeof(struct perf_event_attr), + .config = 0x8000, + .exclude_kernel = 1, +}; + +int metrics_fd = perf_event_open(&metrics, 0, -1, slots_fd, 0); +if (metrics_fd < 0) + ... error ... + + +The RDPMC instruction (or _rdpmc compiler intrinsic) can now be used +to read slots and the topdown metrics at different points of the program: + +#include <stdint.h> +#include <x86intrin.h> + +#define RDPMC_FIXED (1 << 30) /* return fixed counters */ +#define RDPMC_METRIC (1 << 29) /* return metric counters */ + +#define FIXED_COUNTER_SLOTS 3 +#define METRIC_COUNTER_TOPDOWN_L1 0 + +static inline uint64_t read_slots(void) +{ + return _rdpmc(RDPMC_FIXED | FIXED_COUNTER_SLOTS); +} + +static inline uint64_t read_metrics(void) +{ + return _rdpmc(RDPMC_METRIC | METRIC_COUNTER_TOPDOWN_L1); +} + +Then the program can be instrumented to read these metrics at different +points. + +It's not a good idea to do this with too short code regions, +as the parallelism and overlap in the CPU program execution will +cause too much measurement inaccuracy. For example instrumenting +individual basic blocks is definitely too fine grained. + +Decoding metrics values +======================= + +The value reported by read_metrics() contains four 8 bit fields +that represent a scaled ratio that represent the Level 1 bottleneck. +All four fields add up to 0xff (= 100%) + +The binary ratios in the metric value can be converted to float ratios: + +#define GET_METRIC(m, i) (((m) >> (i*8)) & 0xff) + +#define TOPDOWN_RETIRING(val) ((float)GET_METRIC(val, 0) / 0xff) +#define TOPDOWN_BAD_SPEC(val) ((float)GET_METRIC(val, 1) / 0xff) +#define TOPDOWN_FE_BOUND(val) ((float)GET_METRIC(val, 2) / 0xff) +#define TOPDOWN_BE_BOUND(val) ((float)GET_METRIC(val, 3) / 0xff) + +and then converted to percent for printing. + +The ratios in the metric accumulate for the time when the counter +is enabled. For measuring programs it is often useful to measure +specific sections. For this it is needed to deltas on metrics. + +This can be done by scaling the metrics with the slots counter +read at the same time. + +Then it's possible to take deltas of these slots counts +measured at different points, and determine the metrics +for that time period. + + slots_a = read_slots(); + metric_a = read_metrics(); + + ... larger code region ... + + slots_b = read_slots() + metric_b = read_metrics() + + # compute scaled metrics for measurement a + retiring_slots_a = GET_METRIC(metric_a, 0) * slots_a + bad_spec_slots_a = GET_METRIC(metric_a, 1) * slots_a + fe_bound_slots_a = GET_METRIC(metric_a, 2) * slots_a + be_bound_slots_a = GET_METRIC(metric_a, 3) * slots_a + + # compute delta scaled metrics between b and a + retiring_slots = GET_METRIC(metric_b, 0) * slots_b - retiring_slots_a + bad_spec_slots = GET_METRIC(metric_b, 1) * slots_b - bad_spec_slots_a + fe_bound_slots = GET_METRIC(metric_b, 2) * slots_b - fe_bound_slots_a + be_bound_slots = GET_METRIC(metric_b, 3) * slots_b - be_bound_slots_a + +Later the individual ratios for the measurement period can be recreated +from these counts. + + slots_delta = slots_b - slots_a + retiring_ratio = (float)retiring_slots / slots_delta + bad_spec_ratio = (float)bad_spec_slots / slots_delta + fe_bound_ratio = (float)fe_bound_slots / slots_delta + be_bound_ratio = (float)be_bound_slots / slota_delta + + printf("Retiring %.2f%% Bad Speculation %.2f%% FE Bound %.2f%% BE Bound %.2f%%\n", + retiring_ratio * 100., + bad_spec_ratio * 100., + fe_bound_ratio * 100., + be_bound_ratio * 100.); + +Resetting metrics counters +========================== + +Since the individual metrics are only 8bit they lose precision for +short regions over time because the number of cycles covered by each +fraction bit shrinks. So the counters need to be reset regularly. + +When using the kernel perf API the kernel resets on every read. +So as long as the reading is at reasonable intervals (every few +seconds) the precision is good. + +When using perf stat it is recommended to always use the -I option, +with no longer interval than a few seconds + + perf stat -I 1000 --topdown ... + +For user programs using RDPMC directly the counter can +be reset explicitly using ioctl: + + ioctl(perf_fd, PERF_EVENT_IOC_RESET, 0); + +This "opens" a new measurement period. + +A program using RDPMC for TopDown should schedule such a reset +regularly, as in every few seconds. + +Limits on Ice Lake +================== + +Four pseudo TopDown metric events are exposed for the end-users, +topdown-retiring, topdown-bad-spec, topdown-fe-bound and topdown-be-bound. +They can be used to collect the TopDown value under the following +rules: +- All the TopDown metric events must be in a group with the SLOTS event. +- The SLOTS event must be the leader of the group. +- The PERF_FORMAT_GROUP flag must be applied for each TopDown metric + events + +The SLOTS event and the TopDown metric events can be counting members of +a sampling read group. Since the SLOTS event must be the leader of a TopDown +group, the second event of the group is the sampling event. +For example, perf record -e '{slots, $sampling_event, topdown-retiring}:S' + + +[1] https://software.intel.com/en-us/top-down-microarchitecture-analysis-method-win +[2] https://github.com/andikleen/pmu-tools/wiki/toplev-manual +[3] https://software.intel.com/en-us/intel-vtune-amplifier-xe +[4] https://github.com/andikleen/pmu-tools/tree/master/jevents +[5] https://sites.google.com/site/analysismethods/yasin-pubs |