[Cbe-oss-dev] PS3 performance analysis - errors on loading cellperfctr module

[Uzi Shvadron]

cbe-oss-dev-bounces+shvadron=il.ibm.com at ozlabs.org wrote on 12/12/2007
02:06:48:

Can one of you guys try the PDT tool on PS3? It comes with the Cell SDK3.0.
The tool provides performance analysis by tracing including profiling
capabilities. It is purely software base so I do not expect any problems as
I see here. Details can be found in the Programmer's Guide. (We do not have
a PS3 to play with... :-( )

>
> I do not believe you will get OProfile to work on the PS3.  It is my
> understanding that the PS3 processor is shipped in with the hardware
> security enabled.  The hardware security disables the reading of the
> program counter.  It is part of the hardware security features to
> prevent the reverse engineering of an application.  So, the fact that
> the hypervisor support is not there really doesn't matter.  You will
> need a PS3 system that does not have the hardware disabled.
>
> The processor in the IBM CELL product is not shipped with the hardware
> security enabled hence all the hardware support is enabled so OProfile
> works.
>
> On Tue, 2007-12-11 at 15:36 -0800, Geoff Levand wrote:
> > Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> > > On Tuesday 11 December 2007, Geoff Levand wrote:
> > >> The Cell's hardware profiling support is a hypervisor resource,so on
PS3
> > >> you cannot access those resources directly as you can when
> Linux is running
> > >> on the raw hardware.  The IBM Cell Blade for example runs
> without a hypervisor,
> > >> and it uses cellperfctr.ko.  There currently is no Linux
> profiling support
> > >> on PS3 other than the standard oprofile timer based sampling that
the
> > >> generic powerpc code provides.
> > >>
> > >> In general there is a desire to provide some kind of Cell
> specific profiling
> > >> support for the PS3, but nothing has been announced.
> > >
> > > What about the stuff at
> > > http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/eranian/linux-2.6.git;
> a=commitdiff;h=0c39912be3f6cc5df13f107354a97f4bd6c96643
> > >
> > > This at least seems to be on a public server. Is that only work
> in progress,
> > > or is it usable to some degree?
> >
> > Yes, it is usable, I didn't know it was released yet.
> >
> > Yamato-san can you please let us know the status.
> >
> > -Geoff
> >
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