Re: [PATCH 4/5] Revert "drm/atmel-hlcdc: allow selecting a higher pixel-clock than requested"

[Claudiu.Beznea]

On 10.12.2019 19:22, Peter Rosin wrote:
> EXTERNAL EMAIL: Do not click links or open attachments unless you know the content is safe
> 
> On 2019-12-10 15:59, Claudiu.Beznea@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 10.12.2019 16:11, Peter Rosin wrote:
>>> On 2019-12-10 14:24, Claudiu Beznea wrote:
>>>> This reverts commit f6f7ad3234613f6f7f27c25036aaf078de07e9b0.
>>>> ("drm/atmel-hlcdc: allow selecting a higher pixel-clock than requested")
>>>> because allowing selecting a higher pixel clock may overclock
>>>> LCD devices, not all of them being capable of this.
>>>
>>> Without this patch, there are panels that are *severly* underclocked (on the
>>> magnitude of 40MHz instead of 65MHz or something like that, I don't remember
>>> the exact figures).
>>
>> With patch that switches by default to 2xsystem clock for pixel clock, if
>> using 133MHz system clock (as you specified in the patch I proposed for
>> revert here) that would go, without this patch at 53MHz if 65MHz is
>> requested. Correct me if I'm wrong.
> 
> It might have been 53MHz, whatever it was it was too low for things to work.
> 
>>> And they are of course not capable of that. All panels
>>> have *some* slack as to what frequencies are supported, and the patch was
>>> written under the assumption that the preferred frequency of the panel was
>>> requested, which should leave at least a *little* headroom.
>>
>> I see, but from my point of view, the upper layers should decide what
>> frequency settings should be done on the LCD controller and not let this at
>>  the driver's latitude.
> 
> Right, but the upper layers do not support negotiating a frequency from
> ranges. At least the didn't when the patch was written, and implementing
> *that* seemed like a huge undertaking.
> 
>>>
>>> So, I'm curious as to what panel regressed. Or rather, what pixel-clock it needs
>>> and what it gets with/without the patch?
>>
>> I have 2 use cases:
>> 1/ system clock = 200MHz and requested pixel clock (mode_rate) ~71MHz. With
>> the reverted patch the resulted computed pixel clock would be 80MHz.
>> Previously it was at 66MHz
> 
> I don't see how that's possible.
> 
> [doing some calculation by hand]
> 
> Arrgh. *blush*
> 
> The code does not do what I intended for it to do.
> Can you please try this instead of reverting?
> 
> Cheers,
> Peter
> 
> From b3e86d55b8d107a5c07e98f879c67f67120c87a6 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> From: Peter Rosin <peda@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2019 18:11:28 +0100
> Subject: [PATCH] drm/atmel-hlcdc: prefer a lower pixel-clock than requested
> 
> The intention was to only select a higher pixel-clock rate than the
> requested, if a slight overclocking would result in a rate significantly
> closer to the requested rate than if the conservative lower pixel-clock
> rate is selected. The fixed patch has the logic the other way around and
> actually prefers the higher frequency. Fix that.
> 
> Fixes: f6f7ad323461 ("drm/atmel-hlcdc: allow selecting a higher pixel-clock than requested")
> Reported-by: Claudiu Beznea <claudiu.beznea@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Peter Rosin <peda@xxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
>  drivers/gpu/drm/atmel-hlcdc/atmel_hlcdc_crtc.c | 4 ++--
>  1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/drivers/gpu/drm/atmel-hlcdc/atmel_hlcdc_crtc.c b/drivers/gpu/drm/atmel-hlcdc/atmel_hlcdc_crtc.c
> index 9e34bce089d0..03691845d37a 100644
> --- a/drivers/gpu/drm/atmel-hlcdc/atmel_hlcdc_crtc.c
> +++ b/drivers/gpu/drm/atmel-hlcdc/atmel_hlcdc_crtc.c
> @@ -120,8 +120,8 @@ static void atmel_hlcdc_crtc_mode_set_nofb(struct drm_crtc *c)
>                 int div_low = prate / mode_rate;
> 
>                 if (div_low >= 2 &&
> -                   ((prate / div_low - mode_rate) <
> -                    10 * (mode_rate - prate / div)))
> +                   (10 * (prate / div_low - mode_rate) <
> +                    (mode_rate - prate / div)))

I tested it on my setup (I have only one of those specified above) and it
is OK. Doing some math for the other setup it should also be OK.

As a whole, I'm OK with this at the moment (let's hope it will work for all
use-cases) but still I am not OK with selecting here, in the driver,
something that might work. Although I am not familiar with how other DRM
drivers are handling this kind of scenarios. Maybe you and/or other DRM
guys knows more about it.

Just as a notice, it may worth adding a print message saying what was
frequency was requested and what frequency has been setup by driver.

>                         /*
>                          * At least 10 times better when using a higher
>                          * frequency than requested, instead of a lower.
> --
> 2.20.1
>