NVIDIA Sends Out Latest Linux Kernel Patches For 1GB THP To Help Boost Performance

NVIDIA software engineer Zi Yan sent out on Monday his latest "1GB PUD THP" patches in aiming to boost application performance on Linux for software making use of large amounts of RAM.

This 1GB transparent hugepage support for Linux x86_64 is designed to reduce translation overhead and allow for greater application performance for software with large memory footprints without needing any application changes. NVIDIA's motivation for this work is on the performance front with aiming to boost virtual memory performance via gigantic TLB entries without needing additional changes as imposed by HUGETLBFS pages. The PUD THP support would be disabled by default but can be toggled via sysfs under /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/.

To the original version of the "request for comments" patches, upstream Linux developer Roman Gushchin of Facebook commented they are heavily interested in 1GB transparent hugepages compared to 1GB HUGETLBFS pages.

Those interested in this virtual memory work for the Linux kernel can learn more via this patch series.