Re: [Qemu-devel] [RFC] Enabling x2apic on most (all?) x86 CPU models

[Andreas Färber]

Hi,

Am 18.09.2013 22:39, schrieb Eduardo Habkost:
> Hi,
> 
> I would like to get your opinion on this:
> 
> Currently we have x2apic enabled only on SandyBridge and Haswell CPU
> models because we try to keep the CPU models closer to real CPUs.
> However, x2apic improves performance by reducing the overhead of APIC
> accesses, and KVM can emulate it independently of host CPU support for
> x2apic. This feature is present on KVM for 4 years, already (since
> v2.6.32). There's no reason for people to not have x2apic enabled when
> running KVM.
> 
> So, my question is: should we break the "try to be close to real CPUs"
> rule and enable x2apic by default on most (or all) CPU models? I believe
> it is a reasonable thing to do.

I disagree, since this would also affect TCG. I would prefer to add
x2apic only to models that really have it and would be open to generally
enabling it for kvm_enabled() in instance_init/registration (so that
users can disable it via ,-x2apic or soon QMP).

As always, software might make weird assumptions about effects of a
present CPUID bit, but I trust you'll do some more testing before
submitting a non-RFC patch. :)

Regards,
Andreas

> 
> Also: if we do it, should we do it for all CPU models on
> target-i386/cpu.c, or just a subset of them? (maybe the more recent
> ones?)
> 
> (The patch below touches only Conroe, Penryn, Nehalem, and Westmere, and
> it lacks machine-type compatibility code. But I am planning to submit a
> patch that changes all CPU models to include x2apic by default.)
> 
> ---
> diff --git a/target-i386/cpu.c b/target-i386/cpu.c
> index 9abb73f..f76c34b 100644
> --- a/target-i386/cpu.c
> +++ b/target-i386/cpu.c
> @@ -791,7 +791,7 @@ static x86_def_t builtin_x86_defs[] = {
>               CPUID_MCE | CPUID_PAE | CPUID_MSR | CPUID_TSC | CPUID_PSE |
>               CPUID_DE | CPUID_FP87,
>          .features[FEAT_1_ECX] =
> -            CPUID_EXT_SSSE3 | CPUID_EXT_SSE3,
> +            CPUID_EXT_SSSE3 | CPUID_EXT_SSE3 | CPUID_EXT_X2APIC,
>          .features[FEAT_8000_0001_EDX] =
>              CPUID_EXT2_LM | CPUID_EXT2_NX | CPUID_EXT2_SYSCALL,
>          .features[FEAT_8000_0001_ECX] =
> @@ -814,7 +814,7 @@ static x86_def_t builtin_x86_defs[] = {
>               CPUID_DE | CPUID_FP87,
>          .features[FEAT_1_ECX] =
>              CPUID_EXT_SSE41 | CPUID_EXT_CX16 | CPUID_EXT_SSSE3 |
> -             CPUID_EXT_SSE3,
> +             CPUID_EXT_SSE3 | CPUID_EXT_X2APIC,
>          .features[FEAT_8000_0001_EDX] =
>              CPUID_EXT2_LM | CPUID_EXT2_NX | CPUID_EXT2_SYSCALL,
>          .features[FEAT_8000_0001_ECX] =
> @@ -837,7 +837,8 @@ static x86_def_t builtin_x86_defs[] = {
>               CPUID_DE | CPUID_FP87,
>          .features[FEAT_1_ECX] =
>              CPUID_EXT_POPCNT | CPUID_EXT_SSE42 | CPUID_EXT_SSE41 |
> -             CPUID_EXT_CX16 | CPUID_EXT_SSSE3 | CPUID_EXT_SSE3,
> +             CPUID_EXT_CX16 | CPUID_EXT_SSSE3 | CPUID_EXT_SSE3 |
> +             CPUID_EXT_X2APIC,
>          .features[FEAT_8000_0001_EDX] =
>              CPUID_EXT2_LM | CPUID_EXT2_SYSCALL | CPUID_EXT2_NX,
>          .features[FEAT_8000_0001_ECX] =
> @@ -861,7 +862,7 @@ static x86_def_t builtin_x86_defs[] = {
>          .features[FEAT_1_ECX] =
>              CPUID_EXT_AES | CPUID_EXT_POPCNT | CPUID_EXT_SSE42 |
>               CPUID_EXT_SSE41 | CPUID_EXT_CX16 | CPUID_EXT_SSSE3 |
> -             CPUID_EXT_PCLMULQDQ | CPUID_EXT_SSE3,
> +             CPUID_EXT_PCLMULQDQ | CPUID_EXT_SSE3 | CPUID_EXT_X2APIC,
>          .features[FEAT_8000_0001_EDX] =
>              CPUID_EXT2_LM | CPUID_EXT2_SYSCALL | CPUID_EXT2_NX,
>          .features[FEAT_8000_0001_ECX] =
> 


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