docs: neutralize excised-spin references in per-switch N=1 profile

The profile was captured against the spin-enabled build. With the RFC 004
spinning experiment excised from master, the ~12% hot-path futex_wake it
attributed to the spinning submit-rule no longer exists (idle wait is back to
thread::sleep). Add a provenance note, mark the futex_wake row/finding as
excised spin machinery, and drop the now-moot 'gate the submit wake' lead.
Spin-independent findings (shims ~1%, schedule_loop + run-queue ~33%) unchanged.
This commit is contained in:
smarm-agent
2026-06-15 11:21:09 +00:00
parent 371915ad07
commit 64bd7e81a5
+20 -10
View File
@@ -6,6 +6,15 @@ and no cross-core traffic). Sandbox: 1 core, kernel 6.18, **no PMU** (hardware
counters unavailable), so attribution is from `perf record -e task-clock`
(software timer sampling) plus the bench's own rdtsc/wall brackets.
> **Provenance (post-excision).** This profile was captured against the
> spin-enabled build (the pre-excision HEAD, with the RFC 004 spinning workers
> live in `src/runtime.rs`). The RFC 004 spinning experiment has since been
> excised from `master`; idle schedulers are back to the historical
> `thread::sleep` wait. The `futex_wake` attribution below therefore reflects
> spinning machinery that is **no longer present on current master** — see the
> per-row and per-finding notes. The shim, `schedule_loop`, and run-queue
> findings are spin-independent and remain valid.
## Numbers (stable across runs)
- Round-trip p50 ≈ **303 ns ≈ 828 cyc** (instrumentation floor subtracted).
@@ -20,7 +29,7 @@ counters unavailable), so attribution is from `perf record -e task-clock`
|------:|--------|--------|
| 24.8% | `runtime::schedule_loop` | scheduler logic (slot-word/epoch + dispatch) |
| 8.6% | `MutexQueue::push`/`pop`/`len` | run-queue ops |
| ~12% | `do_syscall_64`+`syscall`+`futex_*` | **futex_wake on the hot path** |
| ~12% | `do_syscall_64`+`syscall`+`futex_*` | **futex_wake on the hot path** — spinning submit-rule wake; removed by the RFC 004 excision (not on current master) |
| 3.5% | `IoThread::drain_completions` | the always-on IO thread (`run()` starts one) |
| ~30% | `main` + `clock_gettime`/Timespec + `quicksort` | **instrumentation** (timing + percentile sort) |
| ~1% | `switch_to_scheduler`+`switch_to_actor_asm`+ sp accessors | **the context shims + TLS** |
@@ -34,14 +43,13 @@ self-time.** The N=1 cost is dominated by:
1. **`schedule_loop` + run-queue ops (~33%)** — the epoch/slot-word transition
and the mutex run-queue push/pop on every re-queue.
2. **A `futex_wake` syscall (~12%)** firing on the hot path even though nothing
is parked. This is the **submit-rule wake** the handoff itself flagged (RFC
004 finding #1: "a parallelism/latency optimisation, NOT a liveness guard").
In a single-scheduler always-runnable loop it is pure cost no one is ever
parked to wake. **First cheap-win candidate: suppress the submit wake when
there is no parked waiter** (a parked-count / n_spinning check before the
syscall). Needs care — finding #2's AllDone broadcast is the liveness-critical
one and must NOT be touched.
2. **A `futex_wake` syscall (~12%)** fired on the hot path even though nothing
was parked. This was the spinning **submit-rule wake** introduced by the RFC
004 experiment — a parallelism/latency optimisation, not a liveness guard. In
a single-scheduler always-runnable loop it was pure cost (no one was ever
parked to wake). The RFC 004 excision removed this wake with the rest of the
spinning machinery: on current master idle schedulers use `thread::sleep`
again, so the N=1 hot path no longer makes this syscall.
## What this does and does NOT show
@@ -51,7 +59,9 @@ self-time.** The N=1 cost is dominated by:
that is observable at N=1 on one core.** This profile does NOT refute it; it
establishes that the shim is cheap *until cores contend*.
- So the spike question sharpens into two separable costs:
- **N=1 floor:** scheduler logic + a likely-removable futex_wake. Actionable now.
- **N=1 floor:** scheduler logic (`schedule_loop` + run-queue ops). The
futex_wake component was spinning machinery and is gone post-excision, so the
remaining N=1 floor is the scheduler core itself.
- **N→8 slope:** the shim/TLS/coherency cost. Needs the many-core box + a
`remote` bench mode (wake straddling two schedulers) + hardware PMU counters
(cache-misses, `MEM_LOAD…HITM` for coherency) — none available in this sandbox.