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How to reduce CPU load while sending to Ethernet

Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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I use Cyclone V development kit with no Ethernet connected to the FPGA. One Ethernet connected to HPS. 

I tested CPU load and data rate with simple program: 

 

for(i1 = 0; i1 < i2; i1++) { sent_size += sendto(sock, buf_frame, packet_size, 0, (struct sockaddr *) &echoclient, sizeof(echoclient)); //usleep(sleep_us); /// commented to test max rate, uncommented to reduce CPU load } 

 

 

I've get 86.4 MB/s with packets 8192 B and 100 % CPU load. 

But I need CPU for others tasks. So, I've uncomment usleep(sleep_us) and got with sleep_us = 450, packet_size=8192 only 13.56 MB/s with 17 % CPU. 

17 % CPU load is too much, 14 MB/s is too few. 

 

Is it possible to send more data for less CPU time on HPS of Cyclone V SoC ?
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
552 Views

Did you verify you're transmitting Jumbo frames?

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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
552 Views

The LAN where device is connected has MTU = 1500

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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
552 Views

Fix that and re-test.

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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
552 Views

It is desirable to avoid the restrictions that MTU is differ from commonly acceptable.

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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
552 Views

 

--- Quote Start ---  

It is desirable to avoid the restrictions that MTU is differ from commonly acceptable. 

--- Quote End ---  

 

 

Your original question in your original post was: 

 

--- Quote Start ---  

 

Is it possible to send more data for less CPU time on HPS of Cyclone V SoC ?  

 

--- Quote End ---  

 

 

The answer to that question is: yes, by sending fewer but larger packets. 

 

Your current test is sending (6) 1500b packets instead of (1) 8192b packet, so your processor overhead is 6x what it needs to be.
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
552 Views

 

--- Quote Start ---  

Your original question in your original post was: 

 

 

The answer to that question is: yes, by sending fewer but larger packets. 

 

Your current test is sending (6) 1500b packets instead of (1) 8192b packet, so your processor overhead is 6x what it needs to be. 

--- Quote End ---  

 

 

I'm not a Linux guru or anything, but I thought the stmmac driver included DMA support, so that a non-blocking socket to ethernet should be able to reduce overhead. I haven't looked in to it in any depth, but it would make sense. To reduce the CPU load on such a tight loop, though, you'd need some sort of select event that triggers when the driver is finished sending, with the thread sleeping in between (pthread)
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