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| author | Adrian Hunter <adrian.hunter@intel.com> | 2021-10-27 11:03:31 +0300 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@redhat.com> | 2021-10-27 22:20:18 +0300 |
| commit | f2b91386ffe66dba0860c03c9dec1c6b45c2daba (patch) | |
| tree | 9bcb97a668973e948f114336089644cbdb39ddd7 /tools/perf/Documentation | |
| parent | b6778fe1bbe486e65439a50226b5c7b70dc11d94 (diff) | |
| download | linux-f2b91386ffe66dba0860c03c9dec1c6b45c2daba.tar.xz | |
perf intel-pt: Support itrace A option to approximate IPC
Normally, for cycle-acccurate mode, IPC values are an exact number of
instructions and cycles. Due to the granularity of timestamps, that happens
only when a CYC packet correlates to the event.
Support the itrace 'A' option, to use instead, the number of cycles
associated with the current timestamp. This provides IPC information for
every change of timestamp, but at the expense of accuracy. Due to the
granularity of timestamps, the actual number of cycles increases even
though the cycles reported does not. The number of instructions is known,
but if IPC is reported, cycles can be too low and so IPC is too high. Note
that inaccuracy decreases as the period of sampling increases i.e. if the
number of cycles is too low by a small amount, that becomes less
significant if the number of cycles is large.
Furthermore, it can be used in conjunction with dlfilter-show-cycles.so
to provide higher granularity cycle information.
Reviewed-by: Andi Kleen <ak@linux.intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Adrian Hunter <adrian.hunter@intel.com>
Cc: Jiri Olsa <jolsa@redhat.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20211027080334.365596-4-adrian.hunter@intel.com
Signed-off-by: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@redhat.com>
Diffstat (limited to 'tools/perf/Documentation')
| -rw-r--r-- | tools/perf/Documentation/perf-intel-pt.txt | 10 |
1 files changed, 10 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-intel-pt.txt b/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-intel-pt.txt index 553c3e08fa4a..8914335db84b 100644 --- a/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-intel-pt.txt +++ b/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-intel-pt.txt @@ -157,6 +157,15 @@ of instructions and number of cycles since the last update, and thus represent the average IPC since the last IPC for that event type. Note IPC for "branches" events is calculated separately from IPC for "instructions" events. +Even with the 'cyc' config term, it is possible to produce IPC information for +every change of timestamp, but at the expense of accuracy. That is selected by +specifying the itrace 'A' option. Due to the granularity of timestamps, the +actual number of cycles increases even though the cycles reported does not. +The number of instructions is known, but if IPC is reported, cycles can be too +low and so IPC is too high. Note that inaccuracy decreases as the period of +sampling increases i.e. if the number of cycles is too low by a small amount, +that becomes less significant if the number of cycles is large. + Also note that the IPC instruction count may or may not include the current instruction. If the cycle count is associated with an asynchronous branch (e.g. page fault or interrupt), then the instruction count does not include the @@ -873,6 +882,7 @@ The letters are: L synthesize last branch entries on existing event records s skip initial number of events q quicker (less detailed) decoding + A approximate IPC Z prefer to ignore timestamps (so-called "timeless" decoding) "Instructions" events look like they were recorded by "perf record -e |