Commit 9d0ef7af authored by Rafael J. Wysocki's avatar Rafael J. Wysocki

cpufreq: intel_pstate: Do not use PID-based P-state selection

All systems with a defined ACPI preferred profile that are not
"servers" have been using the load-based P-state selection algorithm
in intel_pstate since 4.12-rc1 (mobile systems and laptops have been
using it since 4.10-rc1) and no problems with it have been reported
to date.  In particular, no regressions with respect to the PID-based
P-state selection have been reported.  Also testing indicates that
the P-state selection algorithm based on CPU load is generally on par
with the PID-based algorithm performance-wise, and for some workloads
it turns out to be better than the other one, while being more
straightforward and easier to understand at the same time.

Moreover, the PID-based P-state selection algorithm in intel_pstate
is known to be unstable in some situation and generally problematic,
the issues with it are hard to address and it has become a
significant maintenance burden.

For these reasons, make intel_pstate use the "powersave" P-state
selection algorithm based on CPU load in the active mode on all
systems and drop the PID-based P-state selection code along with
all things related to it from the driver.  Also update the
documentation accordingly.
Signed-off-by: default avatarRafael J. Wysocki <rafael.j.wysocki@intel.com>
parent 520eccdf
......@@ -167,35 +167,17 @@ is set.
``powersave``
.............
Without HWP, this P-state selection algorithm generally depends on the
processor model and/or the system profile setting in the ACPI tables and there
are two variants of it.
One of them is used with processors from the Atom line and (regardless of the
processor model) on platforms with the system profile in the ACPI tables set to
"mobile" (laptops mostly), "tablet", "appliance PC", "desktop", or
"workstation". It is also used with processors supporting the HWP feature if
that feature has not been enabled (that is, with the ``intel_pstate=no_hwp``
argument in the kernel command line). It is similar to the algorithm
Without HWP, this P-state selection algorithm is similar to the algorithm
implemented by the generic ``schedutil`` scaling governor except that the
utilization metric used by it is based on numbers coming from feedback
registers of the CPU. It generally selects P-states proportional to the
current CPU utilization, so it is referred to as the "proportional" algorithm.
The second variant of the ``powersave`` P-state selection algorithm, used in all
of the other cases (generally, on processors from the Core line, so it is
referred to as the "Core" algorithm), is based on the values read from the APERF
and MPERF feedback registers and the previously requested target P-state.
It does not really take CPU utilization into account explicitly, but as a rule
it causes the CPU P-state to ramp up very quickly in response to increased
utilization which is generally desirable in server environments.
Regardless of the variant, this algorithm is run by the driver's utilization
update callback for the given CPU when it is invoked by the CPU scheduler, but
not more often than every 10 ms (that can be tweaked via ``debugfs`` in `this
particular case <Tuning Interface in debugfs_>`_). Like in the ``performance``
case, the hardware configuration is not touched if the new P-state turns out to
be the same as the current one.
current CPU utilization.
This algorithm is run by the driver's utilization update callback for the
given CPU when it is invoked by the CPU scheduler, but not more often than
every 10 ms. Like in the ``performance`` case, the hardware configuration
is not touched if the new P-state turns out to be the same as the current
one.
This is the default P-state selection algorithm if the
:c:macro:`CONFIG_CPU_FREQ_DEFAULT_GOV_PERFORMANCE` kernel configuration option
......@@ -720,34 +702,7 @@ P-state is called, the ``ftrace`` filter can be set to to
gnome-shell-3409 [001] ..s. 2537.650850: intel_pstate_set_pstate <-intel_pstate_timer_func
<idle>-0 [000] ..s. 2537.654843: intel_pstate_set_pstate <-intel_pstate_timer_func
Tuning Interface in ``debugfs``
-------------------------------
The ``powersave`` algorithm provided by ``intel_pstate`` for `the Core line of
processors in the active mode <powersave_>`_ is based on a `PID controller`_
whose parameters were chosen to address a number of different use cases at the
same time. However, it still is possible to fine-tune it to a specific workload
and the ``debugfs`` interface under ``/sys/kernel/debug/pstate_snb/`` is
provided for this purpose. [Note that the ``pstate_snb`` directory will be
present only if the specific P-state selection algorithm matching the interface
in it actually is in use.]
The following files present in that directory can be used to modify the PID
controller parameters at run time:
| ``deadband``
| ``d_gain_pct``
| ``i_gain_pct``
| ``p_gain_pct``
| ``sample_rate_ms``
| ``setpoint``
Note, however, that achieving desirable results this way generally requires
expert-level understanding of the power vs performance tradeoff, so extra care
is recommended when attempting to do that.
.. _LCEU2015: http://events.linuxfoundation.org/sites/events/files/slides/LinuxConEurope_2015.pdf
.. _SDM: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/64-ia-32-architectures-software-developer-system-programming-manual-325384.html
.. _ACPI specification: http://www.uefi.org/sites/default/files/resources/ACPI_6_1.pdf
.. _PID controller: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller
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