Re: [PATCH 0/1] Always record job cycle and timestamp information

[Adrián Larumbe]

> On 21.02.2024 14:34, Tvrtko Ursulin wrote:
> 
> On 21/02/2024 09:40, Adrián Larumbe wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I just wanted to make sure we're on the same page on this matter. So in
> > Panfrost, and I guess in almost every other single driver out there, HW perf
> > counters and their uapi interface are orthogonal to fdinfo's reporting on drm
> > engine utilisation.
> > 
> > At the moment it seems like HW perfcounters and the way they're exposed to UM
> > are very idiosincratic and any attempt to unify their interface into a common
> > set of ioctl's sounds like a gargantuan task I wouldn't like to be faced with.
> 
> I share the same feeling on this sub-topic.
> 
> > As for fdinfo, I guess there's more room for coming up with common helpers that
> > could handle the toggling of HW support for drm engine calculations, but I'd at
> > least have to see how things are being done in let's say, Freedreno or Intel.
> 
> For Intel we don't need this ability, well at least for pre-GuC platforms.
> Stat collection is super cheap and permanently enabled there.
> 
> But let me copy Umesh because something at the back of my mind is telling me
> that perhaps there was something expensive about collecting these stats with
> the GuC backend? If so maybe a toggle would be beneficial there.
> 
> > Right now there's a pressing need to get rid of the debugfs knob for fdinfo's
> > drm engine profiling sources in Panfrost, after which I could perhaps draw up an
> > RFC for how to generalise this onto other drivers.
> 
> There is a knob currently meaning fdinfo does not work by default? If that is
> so, I would have at least expected someone had submitted a patch for gputop to
> handle this toggle. It being kind of a common reference implementation I don't
> think it is great if it does not work out of the box.

It does sound like I forgot to document this knob at the time I submited fdinfo
support for Panforst.  I'll make a point of mentioning it in a new patch where I
drop debugfs support and enable toggling from sysfs instead.

> The toggle as an idea sounds a bit annoying, but if there is no other
> realistic way maybe it is not too bad. As long as it is documented in the
> drm-usage-stats.rst, doesn't live in debugfs, and has some common plumbing
> implemented both on the kernel side and for the aforementioned gputop /
> igt_drm_fdinfo / igt_drm_clients. Where and how exactly TBD.

As soon as the new patch is merged, I'll go and reflect the driver uAPI changes
in all three of these.

> Regards,
> 
> Tvrtko
> 

Cheers,
Adrian

> > On 16.02.2024 17:43, Tvrtko Ursulin wrote:
> > > 
> > > On 16/02/2024 16:57, Daniel Vetter wrote:
> > > > On Wed, Feb 14, 2024 at 01:52:05PM +0000, Steven Price wrote:
> > > > > Hi Adrián,
> > > > > 
> > > > > On 14/02/2024 12:14, Adrián Larumbe wrote:
> > > > > > A driver user expressed interest in being able to access engine usage stats
> > > > > > through fdinfo when debugfs is not built into their kernel. In the current
> > > > > > implementation, this wasn't possible, because it was assumed even for
> > > > > > inflight jobs enabling the cycle counter and timestamp registers would
> > > > > > incur in additional power consumption, so both were kept disabled until
> > > > > > toggled through debugfs.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > A second read of the TRM made me think otherwise, but this is something
> > > > > > that would be best clarified by someone from ARM's side.
> > > > > 
> > > > > I'm afraid I can't give a definitive answer. This will probably vary
> > > > > depending on implementation. The command register enables/disables
> > > > > "propagation" of the cycle/timestamp values. This propagation will cost
> > > > > some power (gates are getting toggled) but whether that power is
> > > > > completely in the noise of the GPU as a whole I can't say.
> > > > > 
> > > > > The out-of-tree kbase driver only enables the counters for jobs
> > > > > explicitly marked (BASE_JD_REQ_PERMON) or due to an explicit connection
> > > > > from a profiler.
> > > > > 
> > > > > I'd be happier moving the debugfs file to sysfs rather than assuming
> > > > > that the power consumption is small enough for all platforms.
> > > > > 
> > > > > Ideally we'd have some sort of kernel interface for a profiler to inform
> > > > > the kernel what it is interested in, but I can't immediately see how to
> > > > > make that useful across different drivers. kbase's profiling support is
> > > > > great with our profiling tools, but there's a very strong connection
> > > > > between the two.
> > > > 
> > > > Yeah I'm not sure whether a magic (worse probably per-driver massively
> > > > different) file in sysfs is needed to enable gpu perf monitoring stats in
> > > > fdinfo.
> > > > 
> > > > I get that we do have a bit a gap because the linux perf pmu stuff is
> > > > global, and you want per-process, and there's kinda no per-process support
> > > > for perf stats for devices. But that's probably the direction we want to
> > > > go, not so much fdinfo. At least for hardware performance counters and
> > > > things like that.
> > > > 
> > > > Iirc the i915 pmu support had some integration for per-process support,
> > > > you might want to chat with Tvrtko for kernel side and Lionel for more
> > > > userspace side. At least if I'm not making a complete mess and my memory
> > > > is vaguely related to reality. Adding them both.
> > > 
> > > Yeah there are two separate things, i915 PMU and i915 Perf/OA.
> > > 
> > > If my memory serves me right I indeed did have a per-process support for i915
> > > PMU implemented as an RFC (or at least a branch somewhere) some years back.
> > > IIRC it only exposed the per engine GPU utilisation and did not find it very
> > > useful versus the complexity. (I think it at least required maintaining a map
> > > of drm clients per task.)
> > > 
> > > Our more useful profiling is using a custom Perf/OA interface (Observation
> > > Architecture) which is possibly similar to kbase mentioned above. Why it is a
> > > custom interface is explained in a large comment on top of i915_perf.c. Not
> > > sure if all of them still hold but on the overall perf does not sound like the
> > > right fit for detailed GPU profiling.
> > > 
> > > Also PMU drivers are very challenging to get the implementation right, since
> > > locking model and atomicity requirements are quite demanding.
> > > 
> > >  From my point of view, at least it is my initial thinking, if custom per
> > > driver solutions are strongly not desired, it could be interesting to look
> > > into whether there is enough commonality, in at least concepts, to see if a
> > > new DRM level common but extensible API would be doable. Even then it may be
> > > tricky to "extract" enough common code to justify it.
> > > 
> > > Regards,
> > > 
> > > Tvrtko
> > > 
> > > > 
> > > > Cheers, Sima
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > > Steve
> > > > > 
> > > > > > Adrián Larumbe (1):
> > > > > >     drm/panfrost: Always record job cycle and timestamp information
> > > > > > 
> > > > > >    drivers/gpu/drm/panfrost/Makefile           |  2 --
> > > > > >    drivers/gpu/drm/panfrost/panfrost_debugfs.c | 21 ------------------
> > > > > >    drivers/gpu/drm/panfrost/panfrost_debugfs.h | 14 ------------
> > > > > >    drivers/gpu/drm/panfrost/panfrost_device.h  |  1 -
> > > > > >    drivers/gpu/drm/panfrost/panfrost_drv.c     |  5 -----
> > > > > >    drivers/gpu/drm/panfrost/panfrost_job.c     | 24 ++++++++-------------
> > > > > >    drivers/gpu/drm/panfrost/panfrost_job.h     |  1 -
> > > > > >    7 files changed, 9 insertions(+), 59 deletions(-)
> > > > > >    delete mode 100644 drivers/gpu/drm/panfrost/panfrost_debugfs.c
> > > > > >    delete mode 100644 drivers/gpu/drm/panfrost/panfrost_debugfs.h
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > base-commit: 6b1f93ea345947c94bf3a7a6e668a2acfd310918
> > > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > --
> > > > Daniel Vetter
> > > > Software Engineer, Intel Corporation
> > > > http://blog.ffwll.ch