Re: [generalized cache events] Re: [PATCH 1/1] perf tools: Addmissing user space support for config1/config2

From: Ingo Molnar
Date: Mon Apr 25 2011 - 15:46:07 EST



* Stephane Eranian <eranian@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> > This certainly does not match the results i'm seeing on real applications,
> > using "-e instructions:pp" PEBS+LBR profiling. How do you explain that?
> > Also, can you demonstrate your claim with a real example?
>
> LBR removes the off-by-1 IP problem, it does not remove the shadow effect,
> i.e., that blind spot of N cycles caused by the PEBS arming mechanism.

I really think you are grasping at straws here - unless you are able to
demonstrate clear problems - which you have failed to do so far. The pure act
of profiling probably disturbs a typical workload statistically more than a
few cycles skew of the period.

I could imagine artifacts with realy short periods and artificially short and
dominant hotpaths - but in those cases the skew does not matter much in
practice: a short and dominant hotpath is pinpointed very easily ...

So i really think it's a non-issue in practice - but you can certainly prove me
wrong by demonstrating whatever problems you suspect.

Thanks,

Ingo
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/