Re: [HACKERS] Should we cacheline align PGXACT? - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Tom Lane
Subject Re: [HACKERS] Should we cacheline align PGXACT?
Date
Msg-id 17869.1487180906@sss.pgh.pa.us
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In response to Re: [HACKERS] Should we cacheline align PGXACT?  (Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>)
Responses Re: [HACKERS] Should we cacheline align PGXACT?  (Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>)
List pgsql-hackers
Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
> ... Maybe that difference matters to the memory prefetching
> controller, I dunno, but it seems funny that we did the PGXACT work to
> reduce the number of cache lines that had to be touched in order to
> take a snapshot to improve performance, and now we're talking about
> increasing it again, also to improve performance.

Yes.  I was skeptical that the original change was adequately proven
to be a good idea, and I'm even more skeptical this time.  I think
every single number that's been reported about this is completely
machine-specific, and likely workload-specific too, and should not
be taken as a reason to do anything.

My druthers at this point would be to revert the separation on code
cleanliness grounds and call it a day, more or less independently of any
claims about performance.  I'd be willing to talk about padding PGPROC
to some reasonable stride, but I remain dubious that any changes of
that sort would have a half-life worth complicating the code for.
        regards, tom lane



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