Re: [discuss] [patch] mtrr: fix issues with large addresses

[Eric W. Biederman]

"Joerg Roedel" <joerg.roedel@xxxxxxx> writes:

> On Tue, Feb 06, 2007 at 12:08:12PM -0700, ebiederm@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>> "Andreas Herrmann" <andreas.herrmann3@xxxxxxx> writes:
>> > You are referring to current Linux implementation?
>> > The AMD64 architecture increased physical address size in PSE mode to
>> > 40 bits. So at least it would be possible to use more than 32 bits.
>> 
>> How do you get 40 physical bits in a 32bit page table entry? My memory
>> is that the low bits in the page table entry were well defined and
>> accounted for. I'm pretty certain I can account for 6 of the low bits
>> off the top of my head.  PSE is the page size extension allowing pages 2MB/4MB
>> pages.
>
> The access to 40 physical address bits is only possible using large pages
> (4MB on 32bit without PAE). In those page tables entrys you only use
> bits 22:31 for encoding the physical address. The bits 12:21 are
> unused. These unused bits are reused to encode bits 32:39 of the 40 bit
> physical address.

Yep.  I missed that feature, and I do see it in AMD documentation now
that I look.

I'm not certain what that would be useful for though.

I'm pretty certain doesn't use this feature, we just enable PAE mode.

Eric
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