armv8.2-A+ tuned FreeBSD kernels and buildworld buildkernel times: an example

From: Mark Millard <marklmi_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2023 19:16:39 UTC
Context: all world's and kernel's involved/built are non-debug style.

Note: clang15 through LLVM main (so far) has errors in both directions
for the features for cortex-a78c. So I also used +flagm+nofp16fml .
(The cortex-x1c also has such problems, but the details are
different.)

Notation in table below:
CA72:  matching world or kernel had been built using -mcpu=cortex-a72
CA78C: matching world or kernel had been built using -mcpu=cortex-a78C+flagm+nofp16fml

System: Windows Dev Kit 2023 (4 cortex-a78c's and 4 cortex-x1c's):
(both: armv8.2-A with a few more modern features)

Times to build system from scratch (buildworld buildkernel from same
sources) . . .

System running:                   World built in: kernel built in:
CA72  kernel, CA72  world                6601 sec          597 sec
CA78C kernel, CA78C world                4680 sec          413 sec
CA78C kernel, CA72  world (chroot)       4715 sec          422 sec

The CA72/CA72 is from before I'd built the CA78C world and kernel.
All builds used -j8 . None had competing activity on the machine.

What this suggests is having an explicitly armv8.2+ tuned kernel
makes a notable difference for -j8 buildworld buildkernel times
on aarch64.

The Windows Dev Kit 2023 is the first (and only) armv8.1+ based
system that I've have access to. So testing such properties is
limited to the one context.

Also, I've not had access to the Windows Dev Kit 2023 for long:
first experiments.


Notes on my historically-usual aarch64 builds:

On cortex-a72 hardware, my context is -mcpu=cortex-a72 based. This
once exposed a lack of sufficient synchronization in a palce in
the USB subsystem. (Running the same system on cortex-a53 hardware
did not fail. Running -mcpu=cortex-a53 based world+kernel on a
cortex-a72 did not fail. A cortex-a53 hardware running the
-mcpu=cortex-a53 based world+kernel did not fail.)

Until the hardware failed, there was a time when I also had
access to a cortex-a57 FreeBSD system.

I do not do such -mcpu= tailoring on the only FreeBSD amd64 that
I've access to, a ThreadRipper 1950X. I do such only for the lower
end systems that I have access to. My aarch64 access is all to
lower end, not upper end.

===
Mark Millard
marklmi at yahoo.com