rtirq prioritizing.

[Len Ovens]

While alpha testing 12.10, It seemed to me that the audio performance was
much worse than with precise. (you may have seen some comments on IRC)
Well, I rebooted to precise and it was now just as bad... what had
changed? There was only one difference I could see. When testing ISO
installs I install to a usb mass storage device (40 Gig). So I removed it
and performance was like I remembered it, UBS audio IF with jack set to
-p64 and wireless module unloaded was good for no xruns. clearly, the
external hard drive was a problem but I needed it for testing. So maybe
rtirq settings could help. The stock config is:

RTIRQ_NAME_LIST="rtc snd usb i8042"

ps -eo comm,rtprio shows:

irq/16-ehci_hcd     50
irq/16-uhci_hcd     80
irq/17-uhci_hcd     79
irq/18-uhci_hcd     78
irq/19-uhci_hcd     77
irq/12-i8042        74
irq/1-i8042         75
irq/8-rtc0          90
irq/16-ath9k        50
irq/45-eth0         50
irq/46-snd_hda_     85

cat /proc/interrupts shows:

  0:    8341859          0   IO-APIC-edge      timer
  1:       2462          0   IO-APIC-edge      i8042
  8:          1          0   IO-APIC-edge      rtc0
  9:      23283          0   IO-APIC-fasteoi   acpi
 12:     102653          0   IO-APIC-edge      i8042
 16:       2777          0   IO-APIC-fasteoi   ehci_hcd:usb1,
uhci_hcd:usb2, ath9k, i915
 17:          0          0   IO-APIC-fasteoi   uhci_hcd:usb3
 18:          0          0   IO-APIC-fasteoi   uhci_hcd:usb4
 19:          0          0   IO-APIC-fasteoi   uhci_hcd:usb5
 44:      22184          0   PCI-MSI-edge      ahci
 45:      16167          0   PCI-MSI-edge      eth0
 46:        245          0   PCI-MSI-edge      snd_hda_intel

Hmm, well I have 3 USB ports... what are the rest for? Well, the others
are used for other built in peripherals like web cam and SD reader. So I
looked at dmesg to see what USB port my Audio IF was. USB2 as it turns
out, so I reordered things to:

rtc snd usb2 usb i8042

irq/16-ehci_hcd     80
irq/16-uhci_hcd     79
irq/17-uhci_hcd     74
irq/18-uhci_hcd     73
irq/19-uhci_hcd     72
irq/12-i8042        69
irq/1-i8042         70
irq/8-rtc0          90
irq/16-ath9k        78
irq/16-i915         77
irq/46-snd_hda_     85

Hmm, ehci (USB1) is now 80, higher than USB2 (79). It seems that rtirq
does priority by irq number. Looking at cat /proc/interrupts again I can
see that 16: ehci_hcd:usb1, uhci_hcd:usb2, ath9k, i915 has lots of stuff
on it. maybe USB2 is not so good to use... So I plugged the IF into each
socket and was surprised to learn that the other two sockets were both
usb3 (3:0 and 3:1). But at least USB3 is on it's own irq lets try that.
Also, seeing as when I am using a  USB IF I don't need internal sound I
move that lower too:

rtc usb3 snd i8042 usb

irq/16-ehci_hcd     80
irq/16-uhci_hcd     70
irq/17-uhci_hcd     85
irq/18-uhci_hcd     68
irq/19-uhci_hcd     67
irq/12-i8042        74
irq/1-i8042         75
irq/8-rtc0          90
irq/16-ath9k        78
irq/16-i915         77
irq/46-snd_hda_     80

Now my USB IF is higher than all the other USBs and the performance is
back where it should be even when the usb drive is in USB2. I have to
remember that the two usb ports on the right side of my computer are the
same one. I have learned that it does matter what usb port I use. It is
worth while finding out which port is which. So what are all the rest?

USB1 = any port which has a USB 2.0 device.
USB2 = left port
USB3 = two right ports
USB 4&5 ? I don't know, Maybe the standard USB chip comes with 5 ports and
they only used 3. Webcam and SD use USB1.



Len


-- 
Len Ovens
www.OvenWerks.net