Re: [PATCH v2 1/2] cpufreq: Make iowait boost a policy option

From: Peter Zijlstra
Date: Fri May 19 2017 - 06:21:28 EST


On Fri, May 19, 2017 at 11:42:45AM +0200, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> On Thu, May 18, 2017 at 11:23:43PM -0700, Joel Fernandes wrote:
> > Make iowait boost a cpufreq policy option and enable it for intel_pstate
> > cpufreq driver. Governors like schedutil can use it to determine if
> > boosting for tasks that wake up with p->in_iowait set is needed.
>
> Rather than just flat out disabling the option, is there something
> better we can do on ARM?
>
> The reason for the IO-wait boost is to ensure we feed our external
> devices data ASAP, this reduces wait times, increases throughput and
> decreases the duration the devices have to operate.
>
> I realize max freq/volt might not be the best option for you, but is
> there another spot that would make sense? I can imagine you want to
> return your MMC to low power state ASAP as well.
>
>
> So rather than a disable flag, I would really rather see an IO-wait OPP
> state selector or something.

It would be even better if we can determine that point from the power
model data.