Possible Error in SDM 3

charco · ‎07-09-2020

I think there might be a slight error in figures 2-1 and 2-2 of the Intel Software Development Manual Volume 3: System Programming Guide.

Figures 2-1 and 2-2 depict an overview of the System-Level Registers and Data Structures for IA-32 and IA-32e mode, respectively. At the top of the figure, there's a legend specifying that physical addresses are denoted by dotted-line arrows:

At the bottom of the figures, the data structures for the memory-management unit can be seen in an page mapping example.

Given that the Page-Structure entries contain the physical address of the next-level page structure (or a mapped page frame, in the case of Page Table Entries), those arrows should be denoted by dashed-line arrows (Physical Address).

See the following pictures:

Figure 2-2, highlighted arrows should be physical address arrows.Figure 2-1, highlighted arrows should be physical address arrows.
The highlighted arrows should be of the same kind as the arrow that goes from the CR3 to the Page Directory or PML4 in figures 2-1 and 2-2 respectively.

In chapter 4.2 "HIERARCHICAL PAGING STRUCTURES: AN OVERVIEW", it is mentioned that indeed, those entries contain physical addresses:

"Each paging-structure entry contains a physical address, which is either the address of another paging structure or the address of a page frame. In the first case, the entry is said to reference the other paging structure; in the latter, the entry is said to map a page."

Alberto_Sykes · ‎08-03-2020

charco, Thank you for posting in the Intel® Communities Support.

Thank you very much also for providing those details, for this specific matter to be addressed, what we recommend is visit, sign-in and submit your comments in our Intel® Developer Zone of in our Intel® Resource and Design Center web sites:

https://software.intel.com/content/www/us/en/develop/home.html

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/design/resource-design-center.html

Any questions, please let me know.

Regards,

Albert R.

Intel Customer Support Technician

A Contingent Worker at Intel

charco · ‎09-24-2020

Hi Albert,

Thank you for your reply.

Could you point me to where I should post the comments? I followed the links and tried to look for a place to post comments to, I get redirected to community.intel.com (this web page).

Best Regards,
Marco