[Info-vax] VUPS.COM relevance for modern CPUs

[chris]

On 12/16/22 11:57, Mark Daniel wrote:
> Now, before everyone piles on, I understand the procedure provides an 
> indicative/comparative/finger-in-the-air measurement of the relative 
> performance of a VMS CPU relative to "the original VAX processor".

The spec.org site used to be the best place for that sort of thing
and where iirc, the original work to define 1 vup was done. Still
running and might be worth looking at. Truth is though, gains have
been incrementally minimal for single core, with multicore
taking up the banner since.

Here, in the days when I used the Tex package, a good rough guide
was the number of source pages compiled per minute. Microvax II,
about 4 ppm, First Sun workstation, about 20 ppm...

Chris

> 
> It states as much in the prologue:
> 
> |$! Provides an estimate of system CPU performance on OpenVMS systems.
> |$! Use at your own risk.
> 
> To clarify the platform of a particular run I added:
> 
> |$ write sys$output f$fao("!AS with !UL CPU and !ULMB running VMS !AS",-
> |f$edit(f$getsyi("hw_name"),"compress,trim"),-
> |f$getsyi("availcpu_cnt"),-
> |(f$getsyi("memsize")*(f$getsyi("page_size")/512)/2048),-
> |f$edit(f$getsyi("version"),"collapse"))
> 
> which provides the likes of:
> 
> |HP rx2660 (1.40GHz/6.0MB) with 4 CPU and 14335MB running VMS V8.4-2L1
> |Digital Personal WorkStation with 1 CPU and 1536MB running VMS V8.4-2L1
> |innotek GmbH VirtualBox with 2 CPU and 7574MB running VMS V9.2
> 
> It seems to be implemented as a tight DCL loop that executes almost 
> entirely in inner modes (I'm sure Brian can explain why).
> 
> $ start_cputime = f$getjpi(0,"CPUTIM")
> $ loop_index = 0
> $ 10$:
> $ loop_index = loop_index + 1
> $ if loop_index .ne. init_loop_maximum then goto 10$
> $ end_cputime = f$getjpi(0,"CPUTIM")
> 
> |Combined for  2 CPUs         0         50        100       150      200
> | Interrupt State             |                                       |
> | MP Synchronization          |                                       |
> | Kernel Mode              21 |▒▒▒▒                                   |
> | Executive Mode           21 |▒▒▒▒                                   |
> | Supervisor Mode          58 |▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒                            |
> | User Mode                   |                                       |
> | Compatibility Mode          |                                       |
> | Idle Time                99 |▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒                    |
> 
> 100% (or all-but) of this execution appears to be in inner modes. 
> Although X86 (above) seems to to have much more Kernel than other 
> architectures, e.g. IA64 below).  There is no USER mode displayed in 
> either.
> 
> |Combined for  4 CPUs         0         100       200       300      400
> | Interrupt State           1 |                                       |
> | MP Synchronization          |                                       |
> | Kernel Mode               5 |                                       |
> | Executive Mode           18 |▒                                      |
> | Supervisor Mode          78 |▒▒▒▒▒▒▒                                |
> | User Mode                   |                                       |
> | Not Available               |                                       |
> | Idle Time               299 |▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒          |
> 
> There appear to be (at least) two versions of these procedures.  The 
> later contains:
> 
> |$! Modified: MAY-2010: Code updated by Volker Halle to address the
> |$! following issues:
> 
> and tweaks a few of the calculations.
> 
> There also appear to be earlier tweaks allowing for Alpha processors
> 
> |$ cpu_multiplier = 10 ! VAX = 10 - Alpha/AXP = 40
> |$ cpu_round_add = 1 ! VAX = 1 - Alpha/AXP = 9
> 
> but none for Itanium.
> 
> Are the Alpha tweaks sufficient to allow relevance for all 64bit CPUs?
> 
> Are further tweaks required to make measurements on Itania relevant?
> 
> And of course the same question for the successor to all three 
> architectures?
>