Framebuffer readback assembly code for AArch64
On a PINE64 board (ARM Cortex-A53), this provides ~180 MB/s speed for the framebuffer readback. For comparison, the normal memcpy operation in cached buffers runs at around ~1200 MB/s. Such read back speed is actually not very fast and is borderline usable. With a 1920x1080 32bpp screen resolution, this results in something like ~20 FPS scrolling. Benchmark vs. shadow framebuffer (1920x1080 32bpp): == Shadow framebuffer in xf86-video-fbdev == $ wget http://mirror.its.dal.ca/gutenberg/3/2/0/3/32032/32032.txt $ time DISPLAY=:0 xterm +j -maximized -e cat 32032.txt real 0m43.909s user 0m0.820s sys 0m0.300s $ DISPLAY=:0 x11perf -scroll500 -copywinwin500 -copypixwin500 -copywinpix500 15000 trep @ 1.8460 msec ( 542.0/sec): Scroll 500x500 pixels 12000 trep @ 2.2629 msec ( 442.0/sec): Copy 500x500 from window to window 12000 trep @ 2.2096 msec ( 453.0/sec): Copy 500x500 from pixmap to window 14000 trep @ 1.9740 msec ( 507.0/sec): Copy 500x500 from window to pixmap == Direct framebuffer readback in xf86-video-fbturbo == $ wget http://mirror.its.dal.ca/gutenberg/3/2/0/3/32032/32032.txt $ time DISPLAY=:0 xterm +j -maximized -e cat 32032.txt real 2m5.741s user 0m0.390s sys 0m0.190s $ DISPLAY=:0 x11perf -scroll500 -copywinwin500 -copypixwin500 -copywinpix500 4500 trep @ 5.9201 msec ( 169.0/sec): Scroll 500x500 pixels 6000 trep @ 5.9211 msec ( 169.0/sec): Copy 500x500 from window to window 18000 trep @ 1.5341 msec ( 652.0/sec): Copy 500x500 from pixmap to window 4000 trep @ 6.4657 msec ( 155.0/sec): Copy 500x500 from window to pixmap == The direct framebuffer access without the shadow framebuffer layer makes scrolling and moving windows slower. But copying from pixmaps to windows becomes faster. In the real world, copying from offscreen pixmaps to windows is much more important, because it is one of the performance bottlenecks for almost every X11 application. While reading back from the framebuffer is only used for a few very specialized tasks (scrolling/moving windows and making screenshots). On 32-bit ARM systems, the uncached framebuffer readback used to perform better. Even the Cortex-A53 running in 32-bit mode can do framebuffer readback at more than 300 MB/s: https://github.com/ssvb/tinymembench/wiki/PINE64-(Allwinner-A64) Scrolling/moving windows still can be accelerated by the kernel (via DMA, a dedicated 2D accelerator or some other method) and hooked into xf86-video-fbturbo. Signed-off-by: Siarhei Siamashka <siarhei.siamashka@gmail.com>
src/aarch64_asm.S
0 → 100644
Please register or sign in to comment