Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 00/15] Sparc AREG0 conversion

[Blue Swirl]

On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 8:13 AM, Paolo Bonzini <address@hidden> wrote:
> On 09/12/2011 10:01 AM, Richard Henderson wrote:
>>
>> > >  After this patch set, only load and store op helpers remain in
>> > >  op_helper.c. I have some patches for those but they need more
>> > > thought.
>> >
>> >  Have you benchmarked it?
>>
>> Asking for a benchmark without full conversion is pointless.
>
> Agreed.  But I would not push these patches without having tried them out on
> a prototype of a full conversion (i.e. with the load/store helpers
> converted, for which Blue Swirl said he has patches, and with the
> environment not pinned to AREG0 in TCG code).

The load/store helpers are tricky. Some Sparc64 helpers now need five
32/64 bit arguments, that may be a problem on some hosts. Changing
functions like tlb_fill() and do_unaligned_access() to use passed
CPUState pointer instead of AREG0 needs global changes. The template
system for generating the load/store functions is interesting. Then
there are __ldb_mmu() and friends, called from TCG generated code. It
would be highly desirable to limit the changes to only Sparc
translator but I don't think global changes can be avoided.

> So I hoped that he did have such a prototype, or alternatively that he
> benchmarked them and showed only minor degradations.

I don't see any slowdown. Maybe a real benchmark is needed. Looking at
the code, there are only minor differences.

On amd64 host, r14 is now available but does not get used for the new
code, so that doesn't help.

On i386 there are larger differences, but that is mostly because ebp
is normally used for the frame pointer. Using it for a global register
needs -fomit-frame-pointer. Disregarding the frame pointer issues, the
changes are minor.

For example i386 host, unpatched, op_helper.o:
00000dc0 <helper_udiv>:
     dc0:       83 ec 1c                sub    $0x1c,%esp
     dc3:       65 8b 0d 14 00 00 00    mov    %gs:0x14,%ecx
     dca:       89 4c 24 0c             mov    %ecx,0xc(%esp)
     dce:       31 c9                   xor    %ecx,%ecx
     dd0:       8b 44 24 20             mov    0x20(%esp),%eax
     dd4:       8b 54 24 24             mov    0x24(%esp),%edx
     dd8:       8b 4c 24 0c             mov    0xc(%esp),%ecx
     ddc:       65 33 0d 14 00 00 00    xor    %gs:0x14,%ecx
     de3:       75 0a                   jne    def <helper_udiv+0x2f>
     de5:       31 c9                   xor    %ecx,%ecx
     de7:       83 c4 1c                add    $0x1c,%esp
     dea:       e9 f1 fe ff ff          jmp    ce0 <helper_udiv_common>
     def:       e8 fc ff ff ff          call   df0 <helper_udiv+0x30>
     df4:       8d b6 00 00 00 00       lea    0x0(%esi),%esi
     dfa:       8d bf 00 00 00 00       lea    0x0(%edi),%edi

Patched, function in helper.o:
 000002a0 <helper_udiv>:
 2a0:   55                      push   %ebp
 2a1:   89 e5                   mov    %esp,%ebp
 2a3:   53                      push   %ebx
 2a4:   83 ec 14                sub    $0x14,%esp
 2a7:   8b 45 08                mov    0x8(%ebp),%eax
 2aa:   65 8b 1d 14 00 00 00    mov    %gs:0x14,%ebx
 2b1:   89 5d f4                mov    %ebx,-0xc(%ebp)
 2b4:   31 db                   xor    %ebx,%ebx
 2b6:   8b 55 0c                mov    0xc(%ebp),%edx
 2b9:   8b 4d 10                mov    0x10(%ebp),%ecx
 2bc:   8b 5d f4                mov    -0xc(%ebp),%ebx
 2bf:   65 33 1d 14 00 00 00    xor    %gs:0x14,%ebx
 2c6:   75 11                   jne    2d9 <helper_udiv+0x39>
 2c8:   c7 45 08 00 00 00 00    movl   $0x0,0x8(%ebp)
 2cf:   83 c4 14                add    $0x14,%esp
 2d2:   5b                      pop    %ebx
 2d3:   5d                      pop    %ebp
 2d4:   e9 e7 fe ff ff          jmp    1c0 <helper_udiv_common>
 2d9:   e8 fc ff ff ff          call   2da <helper_udiv+0x3a>