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

[Stephane Eranian]

Andi,

On Fri, Aug 30, 2019 at 5:31 PM Andi Kleen <ak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > the same manner. It would greatly simplify the kernel implementation.
>
> I tried that originally. It was actually more complicated.
>
> You can't really do deltas on raw metrics, and a lot of the perf
> infrastructure is built around deltas.
>
How is RAPL handled? No deltas there either. It uses the snapshot model.
At each interval, perf stat just reads the current count, and does not compute
a delta since previous read.
With PERF_METRICS, the delta is always since previous read. If you read
frequently enough you do not lose precision.

>
> To do the regular reset and not lose precision over time internally
> you have to keep expanded counters anyways. And if you do that
> you can just expose them to user space too, and have everything
> in user space just work without any changes (except for the final
> output)
>
> -Andi
>