Re: [PATCH v2] tile: avoid using clocksource_cyc2ns with absolute cycle count

[Peter Zijlstra]

On Thu, Nov 17, 2016 at 03:00:14PM -0500, Chris Metcalf wrote:
> On 11/17/2016 4:53 AM, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> >On Wed, Nov 16, 2016 at 03:16:59PM -0500, Chris Metcalf wrote:
> >>PeterZ (cc'ed) then improved it to use __int128 math via
> >>mul_u64_u32_shr(), but that doesn't help tile; we only do one multiply
> >>instead of two, but the multiply is handled by an out-of-line call to
> >>__multi3, and the sched_clock() function ends up about 2.5x slower as
> >>a result.
> >Well, only if you set CONFIG_ARCH_SUPPORTS_INT128, otherwise it reduces
> >to 2 32x23->64 multiplications, of which one if conditional on there
> >actually being bits set in the high word of the u64 argument.
> 
> I didn't notice that.  It took me down an interesting rathole.
> 
> Obviously the branch optimization won't help on cycle counter values,
> since we blow out of the low 32 bits in the first few seconds of
> uptime.  So the conditional test won't help, but the 32x32
> multiply optimizations should.

Now, I don't quite remember things, but isn't it the idea to convert
cycle deltas and accumulate in ns? That way you most always convert
small values.