[zeromq-dev] Improving latency using futexes?

[Steven McCoy]

2009/11/24 Martin Sustrik <sustrik at 250bpm.com>

> I've did a little experiment with using futex instead of mutex to implement
> a simple semaphore object (applies to Linux only).
>
> My assumption was that by using futex directly we avoid an atomic operation
> that glibc mutex performs in user space before passing control to the
> kernel.
>
> However, I haven't seen any latency improvement whatsoever. Any ideas of
> why it is so? (My naive guess is that both threads to be synchronised by the
> semaphore were scheduled on the same core, thus the atomic operation  was
> extremely fast as it haven't required any cache coherency measures, bus
> locking etc.)
>
>
I investigated this last week, the current NPTL threading system uses futex
in the same way as every F/OSS project does.  Which means the only benefits
using futexes provide is if you are currently using the old Linux threading
model

-- 
Steve-o
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