Re: [RESEND PATCH V3 3/8] perf/x86/intel: Support hardware TopDown metrics

[Liang, Kan]

On 8/28/2019 11:19 AM, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> > +static int icl_set_topdown_event_period(struct perf_event *event)
> > +{
> > +	struct hw_perf_event *hwc = &event->hw;
> > +	s64 left = local64_read(&hwc->period_left);
> > +
> > +	/*
> > +	 * Clear PERF_METRICS and Fixed counter 3 in initialization.
> > +	 * After that, both MSRs will be cleared for each read.
> > +	 * Don't need to clear them again.
> > +	 */
> > +	if (left == x86_pmu.max_period) {
> > +		wrmsrl(MSR_CORE_PERF_FIXED_CTR3, 0);
> > +		wrmsrl(MSR_PERF_METRICS, 0);
> > +		local64_set(&hwc->period_left, 0);
> > +	}
> This really doesn't make sense to me; if you set FIXED_CTR3 := 0, you'll
> never trigger the overflow there; this then seems to suggest the actual
> counter value is irrelevant. Therefore you don't actually need this.

Could you please elaborate on why initialization to 0 never triggers an 
overflow?
As of my understanding, initialization to 0 only means that it will take 
more time than initialization to -max_period (0x8000 0000 0001) to 
trigger an overflow.

Maybe 0 is too tricky. We can set the initial value to 1.
I think the bottom line is that we need a small initial value for 
FIXED_CTR3 here.
PERF_METRICS reports an 8bit integer fraction which is something like 
0xff * internal counters / FIXCTR3.
The internal counters only start counting from 0. (SW cannot set an 
arbitrary initial value for internal counters.)
If the initial value of FIXED_CTR3 is too big, PERF_METRICS could always 
remain constant, e.g. 0.

Thanks,
Kan