Hi Marc,
I'm currently working to unify K8 and Fam10 CAR to use the same code at runtime (as opposed to buildtime #ifdefs). While this may not be a goal for v2, I definitely want to try it for v3.
A few questions/comments about the CAR code: - Only Fam10 APs are treated specially. APs of older generations seem to be unhandled. Did older generations treat each core as BSP (code seems to suggest that) or were there other special provisions? - "Errata 193: Disable clean copybacks to L3 cache to allow cached ROM." Erratum 193 seems to be unlisted in public data sheets. If it is the famous L3 problem, we might want to enable the workaround only on affected revisions. - CAR goes from 0xC8000 to 0xCFFFF. Assuming GlobalVarSize=0 (untrue, but easier to calculate), BSP stack will be from 0xCC000 to 0xCFFFF and AP stacks will be below 0xCBFFF. * With the current settings (32k CAR total, 1k per AP, 16K for the BSP) the scheme will fall apart if the highest NodeID shifted by the number of CoreID bits is 16 or higher. The BKDG indicates that the number of CoreID bits is 2, so a NodeID of 4 or higher will break. * There is no good place to store the printk() buffer in CAR. On Geode and i586, the printk buffer runs from the lowest address of the CAR area to the middle. Keeping that design will result in the AP stacks colliding with the printk buffer. Limiting the size of the printk buffer dynamically would work unless there are more than 15 cores in the system, where even a printk buffer of zero size would clobber one AP stack. The other alternative is to keep the printk buffer size fixed and let the AP stacks eat into BSP stack space. - Is there any reason on any K8 or later processor supported by the current CAR code not to use 64k CAR? - Is 1k enough stack for the APs, given some stack-heavy functions in v3? - Can the K8 processors work reliably with 0x1e1e1e1e settings in the fixed MTRR or can the Fam10 processors work with 0x06060606?
Regards, Carl-Daniel