Why was the timehands_count sysctl added?

From: Sebastian Huber <sebastian.huber_at_embedded-brains.de>
Date: Sat, 09 Oct 2021 19:41:28 UTC
Hello,

I synchronize currently the port of the FreeBSD timecounters to RTEMS 
and came across a change in 2019 which I do not understand. Some time 
ago the timehands were reduced from 10 to two:

https://reviews.freebsd.org/D7302

In 2019 this changed again to be up to 16:

https://reviews.freebsd.org/D21563

The corresponding sysctl is not documented:

https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=timecounters&sektion=4

Does someone know why this sysctl to select the count of timehands was 
added? Is this a performance optimization for some systems?

Best regards,
	Sebastian

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