netdev
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: NAPI-ized tulip patch against 2.4.20-rc1

To: Ben Greear <greearb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: NAPI-ized tulip patch against 2.4.20-rc1
From: Donald Becker <becker@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2002 13:31:09 -0500 (EST)
Cc: Robert Olsson <Robert.Olsson@xxxxxxxxxxx>, "'netdev@xxxxxxxxxxx'" <netdev@xxxxxxxxxxx>, Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
In-reply-to: <3DC95631.6030001@candelatech.com>
Sender: netdev-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxx
On Wed, 6 Nov 2002, Ben Greear wrote:

> >  I see you increased the RX-ring to 1024 pkts. 
> >  Did you really see any improvement with this?
> 
> It helped drop fewer packets when running 4 ports at 92Mbps+
> However, the difference between that and 512 is not large.

Using 512 Rx buffers at 100Mbps seem like a pretty silly default.

> I would really like to make that size adjustable at module load
> time and/or runtime, but I'm not sure how easy that would be.

It's trivial for many (but not all) drivers.
I've been considering doing that with my driver release.
There is no longer a CPU cycle cost issue with ring-wrapping on an
arbitrary ring size.

> Imagine being able to crank up your receive buffers when running at
> very high speeds (and/or when you start dropping packets).  At lower speeds,
> shrink things down and free up resources....

Being that dynamic involves writing code and extensive testing with all
of the different chips.

The trivial case is a module option that sets a variable replacing
RX_RING_SIZE / TX_RING_SIZE..
The passed-in value shouldn't be used directly:
 - many drivers have upper and lower bounds
 - the size can only be changed when the rings are initialized,
   which occurs when the interface starts.
 - users thinking "if 32 is good, 32000 is better"

> >  Also I would be interested if you have any numbers for recycling patch? 

interest++

-- 
Donald Becker                           becker@xxxxxxxxx
Scyld Computing Corporation             http://www.scyld.com
410 Severn Ave. Suite 210               Scyld Beowulf cluster system
Annapolis MD 21403                      410-990-9993


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>