Porting/LLVMpipe

LLVMpipe (source code) runs on POWER, but performance has room for improvement.

Testing Notes

If your machine has a discrete accelerated GPU, then you'll probably need to set these environment variables in order to test LLVMpipe:

export LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=true
export GALLIUM_DRIVER=llvmpipe

Potentially useful benchmarking tools:

• glmark2 (seems to be not very useful at noticing small LLVMpipe optimizations)
• OpenArena (seems to work okay for testing LLVMpipe optimizations).
  • Download this benchmarking script, run it as ./benchmark.sh
• Xonotic (haven't tried it yet)
• list of desktop graphics tests run by Phoronix
• list of games that run on POWER9

Thread Count

To 32 Threads (Merged)

LLVMpipe is limited to 16 threads. The only easily findable justification for this limit is in a commit from 2013, where it was increased from 8 because a user reported on a mailing list that 16 was faster for them. Given that POWER9 systems often have much higher thread counts than this, this limit may be suboptimal for POWER9.

luke-jr reports that bumping the limit to 128 threads noticeably improved performance in 3D games, e.g. Jedi Academy (detail set to High, Texture to Very High, Texture Filter BILINEAR, Detailed Shaders ON, Video Sync OFF, resolution 800x600) went from ~15 fps with 16 threads to ~25 fps with 64 threads (on a 2x 8-core Talos II). However, it also had the side effect that most GUI applications spawned more LLVMpipe threads, which was annoying in gdb/top. Luke worked around this issue by setting the environment variable LP_NUM_THREADS=2 globally, and overriding for 3D applications that needed more threads. Luke's patch is:

diff -ur mesa-17.3.9.orig/src/gallium/drivers/llvmpipe/lp_limits.h mesa-17.3.9/src/gallium/drivers/llvmpipe/lp_limits.h
--- mesa-17.3.9.orig/src/gallium/drivers/llvmpipe/lp_limits.h	2018-04-18 04:44:00.000000000 -0400
+++ mesa-17.3.9/src/gallium/drivers/llvmpipe/lp_limits.h	2018-05-02 05:20:57.586000000 -0400
@@ -61,7 +61,7 @@
 #define LP_MAX_WIDTH  (1 << (LP_MAX_TEXTURE_LEVELS - 1))
 
 
-#define LP_MAX_THREADS 16
+#define LP_MAX_THREADS 128
 
 
 /**
Only in mesa-17.3.9/src/gallium/drivers/llvmpipe: lp_limits.h~

JeremyRand benchmarked OpenArena with LLVMpipe, and found that for 1920x1200 resolution on a 2x 4-core Talos II running Debian Bullseye, the following Mesa patch improved performance:

diff -ur stock/mesa-20.3.5/src/gallium/drivers/llvmpipe/lp_limits.h 32-threads/mesa-20.3.5/src/gallium/drivers/llvmpipe/lp_limits.h
--- stock/mesa-20.3.5/src/gallium/drivers/llvmpipe/lp_limits.h  2021-03-24 14:10:48.744070300 -0500
+++ 32-threads/mesa-20.3.5/src/gallium/drivers/llvmpipe/lp_limits.h     2022-07-02 04:08:46.880000000 -0500
@@ -66,7 +66,9 @@
 
 #define LP_MAX_SAMPLES 4
 
-#define LP_MAX_THREADS 16
+// Bumped by Jeremy
+//#define LP_MAX_THREADS 16
+#define LP_MAX_THREADS 32
 
 
 /**

Before the 32-thread patch:

3398 frames 487.6 seconds 7.0 fps 83.0/143.5/7186.0/25.1 ms
3398 frames 472.7 seconds 7.2 fps 86.0/139.1/2242.0/22.9 ms
3398 frames 466.5 seconds 7.3 fps 86.0/137.3/943.0/21.1 ms
3398 frames 467.5 seconds 7.3 fps 83.0/137.6/846.0/22.4 ms
3398 frames 474.8 seconds 7.2 fps 86.0/139.7/779.0/22.8 ms

After the 32-thread patch:

3398 frames 417.7 seconds 8.1 fps 77.0/122.9/1748.0/18.9 ms
3398 frames 417.9 seconds 8.1 fps 76.0/123.0/997.0/19.6 ms
3398 frames 419.9 seconds 8.1 fps 76.0/123.6/806.0/19.8 ms
3398 frames 422.7 seconds 8.0 fps 75.0/124.4/758.0/21.1 ms
3398 frames 419.1 seconds 8.1 fps 75.0/123.3/730.0/20.4 ms

The 32-thread patch has been merged to Mesa on 2022 October 4.

To More Than 32 Threads

Nashimus tested #define LP_MAX_THREADS 144 on a 2x 18-core Talos II, with the following results:

16 threads:                 3398 frames 312.5 seconds 10.9 fps 55.0/92.0/8375.0/21.2 ms
64 threads:                 3398 frames 221.5 seconds 15.3 fps 33.0/65.2/8390.0/21.4 ms
144 threads:                3398 frames 208.5 seconds 16.3 fps 30.0/61.4/8364.0/21.8 ms

It would be desirable to compare 32 threads to 64 threads on the same setup so that Jeremy's results and Nashimus's results can be more directly compared.

If anyone has a 2x 22-core Talos II, please rebuild LLVMpipe with #define LP_MAX_THREADS 176, run the above linked OpenArena benchmark, and share the results.

Vector Optimizations

As of 2022 June 10, grepping main branch src/gallium/drivers/llvmpipe/ for altivec yields only 2 files (lp_rast_tri.c and lp_setup_tri.c, both of which are POWER8 LE), while grepping for PIPE_ARCH_SSE yields 11 files. This seems to suggest that a lot of POWER vector optimizations are missing from LLVMpipe. POWER9 vector optimizations (the LLVM power9-vector feature), and POWER8 BE optimizations, appear to be completely absent.

calc_fixed_position

JeremyRand ran the perf.sh benchmark for OpenArena (see above link) on Debian Bullseye (with 32 threads, see above patch), and found that 0.21% of CPU time (6th-highest-ranked function) was used by triangle_ccw, which is mostly a wrapper for the inline function calc_fixed_position in lp_setup_tri.c. This happens to be the only function that uses SSE in Debian Bullseye but is missing an Altivec implementation in main branch (other SSE-utilizing functions were added to main after Debian Bullseye).

Jeremy enabled build-time SSE intrinsics translation in the calc_fixed_position function via this patch:

diff -ur 32-threads/mesa-20.3.5/src/gallium/drivers/llvmpipe/lp_setup_tri.c 32-threads-simd-wip2/mesa-20.3.5/src/gallium/drivers/llvmpipe/lp_setup_tri.c
--- 32-threads/mesa-20.3.5/src/gallium/drivers/llvmpipe/lp_setup_tri.c  2021-03-24 14:10:48.746070400 -0500
+++ 32-threads-simd-wip2/mesa-20.3.5/src/gallium/drivers/llvmpipe/lp_setup_tri.c        2022-07-02 05:22:44.160000000 -0500
@@ -49,9 +49,14 @@
 #elif defined(_ARCH_PWR8) && UTIL_ARCH_LITTLE_ENDIAN
 #include <altivec.h>
 #include "util/u_pwr8.h"
+// Emulate SSE
+#define NO_WARN_X86_INTRINSICS
+#define __m128i __x86__m128i
+#include <emmintrin.h>
+#undef __m128i
 #endif
 
-#if !defined(PIPE_ARCH_SSE)
+#if !(defined(PIPE_ARCH_SSE) || (defined(_ARCH_PWR8) && UTIL_ARCH_LITTLE_ENDIAN))
 
 static inline int
 subpixel_snap(float a)
@@ -1032,7 +1037,10 @@
     * otherwise nearest/away-from-zero).
     * Both should be acceptable, I think.
     */
-#if defined(PIPE_ARCH_SSE)
+#if defined(PIPE_ARCH_SSE) || (defined(_ARCH_PWR8) && UTIL_ARCH_LITTLE_ENDIAN)
+   #if defined(_ARCH_PWR8) && UTIL_ARCH_LITTLE_ENDIAN
+      #define __m128i __x86__m128i
+   #endif
    __m128 v0r, v1r;
    __m128 vxy0xy2, vxy1xy0;
    __m128i vxy0xy2i, vxy1xy0i;
@@ -1061,6 +1069,9 @@
    y0120 = _mm_unpackhi_epi32(x0x2y0y2, x1x0y1y0);
    _mm_store_si128((__m128i *)&position->x[0], x0120);
    _mm_store_si128((__m128i *)&position->y[0], y0120);
+   #if defined(_ARCH_PWR8) && UTIL_ARCH_LITTLE_ENDIAN
+      #undef __m128i
+   #endif
 
 #else
    position->x[0] = subpixel_snap(v0[0][0] - pixel_offset);

When combined with the 32-thread patch from the above section, Jeremy obtained the following benchmarks in OpenArena:

32 threads without SIMD patch:

3398 frames 417.7 seconds 8.1 fps 77.0/122.9/1748.0/18.9 ms
3398 frames 417.9 seconds 8.1 fps 76.0/123.0/997.0/19.6 ms
3398 frames 419.9 seconds 8.1 fps 76.0/123.6/806.0/19.8 ms
3398 frames 422.7 seconds 8.0 fps 75.0/124.4/758.0/21.1 ms
3398 frames 419.1 seconds 8.1 fps 75.0/123.3/730.0/20.4 ms

32 threads with SIMD patch:

3398 frames 418.5 seconds 8.1 fps 76.0/123.2/865.0/19.7 ms
3398 frames 414.7 seconds 8.2 fps 74.0/122.1/805.0/19.7 ms
3398 frames 418.8 seconds 8.1 fps 74.0/123.2/701.0/20.0 ms
3398 frames 424.0 seconds 8.0 fps 77.0/124.8/524.0/21.7 ms
3398 frames 414.1 seconds 8.2 fps 74.0/121.9/621.0/19.2 ms

This seems like an improvement, though a quite small one.

Jeremy checked the function size using nm:

nm -S --size-sort -t d ./build/src/gallium/drivers/llvmpipe/libllvmpipe.a.p/lp_setup_tri.c.o | grep ' triangle_ccw'
# Without SIMD patch:
0000000000000000 0000000000000736 t triangle_ccw
# With SIMD patch:
0000000000000000 0000000000000604 t triangle_ccw

Nashimus tested the above lp_setup_tri.c patch in OpenArena with different thread counts:

16 threads:                 3398 frames 312.5 seconds 10.9 fps 55.0/92.0/8375.0/21.2 ms
16 threads and SIMD patch:  3398 frames 309.1 seconds 11.0 fps 54.0/91.0/8421.0/20.9 ms
64 threads:                 3398 frames 221.5 seconds 15.3 fps 33.0/65.2/8390.0/21.4 ms
64 threads and SIMD patch:  3398 frames 222.3 seconds 15.3 fps 35.0/65.4/8464.0/21.4 ms
144 threads:                3398 frames 208.5 seconds 16.3 fps 30.0/61.4/8364.0/21.8 ms
144 threads and SIMD patch: 3398 frames 208.7 seconds 16.3 fps 30.0/61.4/8327.0/21.8 ms

Other functions

It would be desirable to create and test similar patches for SSE-based non-Altivec functions added between Debian Bullseye and current main.

Nashimus tested File:LLVMpipe-SIMD-bookworm.patch in OpenArena with different thread counts. Starting from Mesa commit b91971c2 on Ubuntu 22.04:

   32 threads (14.92 avg fps):
       3398 frames 224.7 seconds 15.1 fps 36.0/66.1/2483.0/14.4 ms
       3398 frames 229.7 seconds 14.8 fps 38.0/67.6/1533.0/15.1 ms
       3398 frames 227.6 seconds 14.9 fps 39.0/67.0/1522.0/13.9 ms
       3398 frames 227.9 seconds 14.9 fps 39.0/67.1/1533.0/14.1 ms
       3398 frames 227.7 seconds 14.9 fps 39.0/67.0/1551.0/14.2 ms
   
   32 threads and SIMD patch (14.84 avg fps):
       3398 frames 230.6 seconds 14.7 fps 40.0/67.9/2080.0/18.1 ms
       3398 frames 230.1 seconds 14.8 fps 39.0/67.7/1711.0/14.7 ms
       3398 frames 227.0 seconds 15.0 fps 38.0/66.8/1485.0/14.7 ms
       3398 frames 230.2 seconds 14.8 fps 36.0/67.7/1482.0/14.8 ms
       3398 frames 228.7 seconds 14.9 fps 40.0/67.3/1522.0/14.6 ms
   
   144 threads (17.68 avg fps):
       3398 frames 193.9 seconds 17.5 fps 31.0/57.1/2141.0/16.1 ms
       3398 frames 191.3 seconds 17.8 fps 30.0/56.3/1743.0/14.4 ms
       3398 frames 191.5 seconds 17.7 fps 30.0/56.4/1526.0/14.6 ms
       3398 frames 192.3 seconds 17.7 fps 30.0/56.6/1528.0/14.0 ms
       3398 frames 191.8 seconds 17.7 fps 29.0/56.4/1545.0/13.7 ms
   
   144 threads and SIMD patch (17.42 avg fps):
       3398 frames 206.8 seconds 16.4 fps 29.0/60.9/8731.0/21.7 ms
       3398 frames 195.5 seconds 17.4 fps 30.0/57.5/1710.0/14.9 ms
       3398 frames 190.6 seconds 17.8 fps 30.0/56.1/1538.0/14.6 ms
       3398 frames 191.6 seconds 17.7 fps 31.0/56.4/1587.0/14.5 ms
       3398 frames 191.4 seconds 17.8 fps 31.0/56.3/1510.0/13.6 ms