Memory part 7: Memory performance tools [LWN.net]

Memory part 7: Memory performance tools

Posted Nov 15, 2007 12:20 UTC (Thu) by Ponto (guest, #49056)
Parent article: Memory part 7: Memory performance tools

I am wondering what performance counters one has to monitor with oprofile 
to get cache synchronization events on opteron and xeon 64 bit machines. I 
could not find any reading through the available events on the oprofile 
homepage.

I am especially interessted in detecting cache-ping-pong situations.

(Log in to post comments)

Memory part 7: Memory performance tools

Posted Nov 17, 2007 21:39 UTC (Sat) by anton (guest, #25547) [Link]

I would write a small program that does cache ping-pong, and then look at which events are counted. For the "AMD64" events I would especially look at DATA_CACHE_REFILLS_FROM_SYSTEM and DATA_CACHE_LINES_EVICTED with various combinations of cache states for the Unit Mask options. PIPELINE_RESTART_DUE_TO_PROBE_HIT, DCACHE_MISS_LOCKED_INSTRUCTIONS, SYSTEM_READ_RESPONSES, CACHE_BLOCK_COMMANDS, PROBE_RESPONSES_AND_UPSTREAM_REQUESTS and HYPERTRANSPORT_LINK*_BANDWIDTH are probably also relevant.