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Different multi threaded sync strategy for AMD 
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Joined: 2011-10-07 10:39:20
Posts: 181
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The patch tries to improve the sync strategy for multi threaded texture binding a bit, especially for AMD cards.

The NVidia path enabled in the last version is not optimal on AMD, it prevents texture corruption but leads to hangs and grey textures while the pipeline is blocked on the syncs. The AMD driver does not handle the same thread sync as fast and efficient as the NVidia one, so it blocks for quite some time in the glWaitClientSync() and stalls the texture processing.

The patch does the following things:
    * Make mTexName atomic so it can be accessed from threads directly (to avoid the callback to the main thread for that). Maybe not needed, but doesn't hurt.
    * Just delete the texture in the main thread if needed
    * Add the wait for the fence in the places where the mTexName is actually accessed, no need to block earlier

I tested a bit with 512m draw distance and teleporting and running/flying around to new places and it felt pretty snappy. No grey or corrupted textures as far as i could see. Textures from snapshots and notecards worked nicely as well.
Better than the old code for AMD at least, no stuttering. The code could be used for NVidia in the same way without issues.

I do not know how good it works with the older AMD drivers, but with the current 22.11.2 driver it looked fairly stable.


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2022-12-29 17:37:27
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Joined: 2009-03-17 18:42:51
Posts: 5523
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kathrine wrote:
The patch tries to improve the sync strategy for multi threaded texture binding a bit, especially for AMD cards.
Thank you. However, after a close look at your code, I see the following problems:

Quote:
* Make mTexName atomic so it can be accessed from threads directly (to avoid the callback to the main thread for that). Maybe not needed, but doesn't hurt.
mTexName should not be changed at random times during the rendering of a frame, and your code now changes it from the GL images creation threads. LL's code was instead ensuring it was only changed from the lambda stored in the work queue, which is executed from the main thread, and out of the frame rendering code...

Quote:
Add the wait for the fence in the places where the mTexName is actually accessed, no need to block earlier
Nice idea, but alas it also may cause issues in your code, since mTexName may be used in other methods not covered by your ensureSync() method, e.g. in setSubImage() when use_name = 0... A solution would be to replace all mTexName uses with getTexName() (so that ensureSync() is called there, when needed), however it slows down (even if only a tiny bit) the code... Another issue with ensureSync() is that mTexNameSync is not atomic, while set in both the main and GL image threads; granted, having an image re-created fast enough (in the same frame) for this to be a problem is quite unlikely, but still, code correctness would impose an atomic variable here, meaning an even (slightly) slower ensureSync().

Quote:
I do not know how good it works with the older AMD drivers, but with the current 22.11.2 driver it looked fairly stable.
And we do not now either how it would work with Mesa under Linux (cannot test it myself, by lack of an AMD card)...

For next release, I simply reverted the code as it used to be for non-NVIDIA cards (NVIDIA can still enjoy a smoother experience, since the fence is placed within the GL image thread, and does not affect/stall the main render thread GL pipeline as a result).

EDIT: I found a better solution and kept your (excellent) idea for non-NVIDIA GPUs; the latter will still, by default, wait for the fence in the GL image creation thread, to avoid risking to stall the main thread GL pipeline at all, but I added a debug setting ("RenderGLImageSyncInThread") for them, in case people want to experiment with the new syncing algorithm. This allowed me to remove entirely the posting to the main thread work queue (simpler) while ensuring (via an atomic boolean test each time we use mTexName) that the tex name is swapped in the main thread when first needed.


2022-12-29 23:42:39
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