This is to allow C++ verilator toplevel to support
multiple modes of waveform tracing
VM_TRACE_FST can be used inside a #if VM_TRACE
section to switch between classic .vcd tracing and the
more compact .fst format supported by GTKWAVE
* Don't use thin-archive to merge multiple archives because it is gnu-ar specific.
* remove -time option that may caues -Wunused-command-line-argument warning
This allows compiling the run-time library with optimization even when OPT_FAST is not used in order to imporove model build speed, possibly during debug cycles.
Instead of __ALLfast.cpp and __ALLslow.cpp, we now create only a single
__ALL.cpp and compile it with OPT_FAST, this speeds up small builds
where the C compiler does not dominate. A separate patch will follow
turning VM_PARALLEL_BUILDS on by default at a certain size.
Given this change to the build there is now no point in emitting both
fast and slow routines into the same .cpp file when --output-split is
not set as they will be just included in the same __ALL.cpp file. To
keep things simpler and the output easier to comprehend, V3EmitC has
also been changed to always emit the fast and slow files separately.
Also change verilated.mk to apply OPT_SLOW to all slow files, not just
ones called *__Slow.cpp. This change in particular ensures __Syms.cpp
is build as slow.
Part of #2360.
The --trace-threads option can now be used to perform tracing on a
thread separate from the main thread when using VCD tracing (with
--trace-threads 1). For FST tracing --trace-threads can be 1 or 2, and
--trace-fst --trace-threads 1 is the same a what --trace-fst-threads
used to be (which is now deprecated).
Performance numbers on SweRV EH1 CoreMark, clang 6.0.0, Intel i7-3770 @
3.40GHz, IO to ramdisk, with numactl set to schedule threads on different
physical cores. Relative speedup:
--trace -> --trace --trace-threads 1 +22%
--trace-fst -> --trace-fst --trace-threads 1 +38% (as --trace-fst-thread)
--trace-fst -> --trace-fst --trace-threads 2 +93%
Speed relative to --trace with no threaded tracing:
--trace 1.00 x
--trace --trace-threads 1 0.82 x
--trace-fst 1.79 x
--trace-fst --trace-threads 1 1.23 x
--trace-fst --trace-threads 2 0.87 x
This means FST tracing with 2 extra threads is now faster than single
threaded VCD tracing, and is on par with threaded VCD tracing. You do
pay for it in total compute though as --trace-fst --trace-threads 2 uses
about 240% CPU vs 150% for --trace-fst --trace-threads 1, and 155% for
--trace --trace threads 1. Still for interactive use it should be
helpful with large designs.
When using the __ALL*.cpp based single compile mode (i.e.: without
VM_PARALLEL_BUILDS), the fast path tracing code used to be included in
__Allsup.cpp, which was compiled with OPT_SLOW, severely harming tracing
performance. We now have __ALLfast.cpp and __ALLslow.cpp instead of
__ALLcls.cpp and __ALLsup.cpp, so we can compile the fast support code
with OPT_FAST as well.
Wilson Snyder
Markus Krause
Yutetsu TAKATSUKASA
Geza Lore