Messages in this thread | | | From | Daniel Phillips <> | Subject | Re: HZ, preferably as small as possible | Date | Wed, 17 Jul 2002 22:40:06 +0200 |
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On Wednesday 17 July 2002 22:31, Richard B. Johnson wrote: > On Wed, 17 Jul 2002, Daniel Phillips wrote: > > > On Monday 15 July 2002 07:06, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > > There is, of course, the option to do variable frequency (and make it > > > integer multiples of the exposed "constant HZ" so that kernel code > > > doesn't actually need to _care_ about the variability). There are > > > patches to play with things like that. > > > > We don't have to feel restricted to integer multiples. I'll paste in my > > earlier post, for your convenience: > > > > > ...If somebody wants a cruder scheduling interval than the raw timer > > > interrupt, that's child's play, just step the interval down. The > > > only slightly challenging thing is do that without restricting > > > choice of rate for the raw timer and scheduler, respectively. Here, > > > a novel application of Bresenham's algorithm (the line drawing > > > algorithm) works nicely: at each raw interrupt, subtract the period > > > of the raw interrupt from an accumulator; if the result is less > > > than zero, add the period of the scheduler to the accumlator and > > > drop into the scheduler's part of the timer interrupt. > > > > [which just increments the timer variable I believe] > > > > > This Bresenham trick works for arbitrary collections of interrupt > > > rates, all with different periods. It has the property that, > > > over time, the total number of invocations at each rate remains > > > *exactly* correct, and so long as the raw interrupt runs at a > > > reasonably high rate, displacement isn't that bad either. > > > > This technique is scarcely less efficient than the cruder method. > > It is hardly novel and I can't imagine how Bresenham or whomever > could make such a claim to the obvious. Even the DOS writer(s) used > this technique to get one-second time intervals from the 18.206 > ticks/per second. This is simply division by subtraction, but you > don't throw away the remainder. Therefore, in the limit, there is > no remainder. However, at any instant, the time can be off by as > much as the divisor -1. FYI, you make digital filters using this > same method, it's hardly novel.
It's novel for Linux then, because it seems not to have occured to anyone here. I'll take your agressive response as a vote in favor.
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