Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 22 Jul 1997 17:10:21 +0200 (MET DST) | From | Ingo Molnar <> | Subject | Re: question about M2 "feature" |
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On Tue, 22 Jul 1997, Patrick St. Jean wrote:
> I saw it in "Windows Sources" August 1997 issue. Page 108 third column. > > here's the quote: > [snip] > An intersting feature available on the 6x86MX, which has yet to be > implemented in software is Scratchpad RAM. This tiny 8K block of cache on > the chip stores small pieces of code locally, rather than in the L2 cache. > Cyrix promises that this will allow a serious performance boost to any > instructions an application might post there. > > end quote.
we could use that area for free memory handling.
we could put the single-page usage bitmap there, 8k is enough to handle up to about 256M RAM if 1 bit represents 1 page. (a bit less than 256M RAM, since some bits are needed for higher order coverage bits)
gosh, ~10 cycles __guaranteed__ get_free_page() execution time, ~20 cycles average free_page() execution time ;) and no L1/L2 cache trashing :)
-- mingo
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