Re: [LSF/MM/BPF TOPIC] 64k (or 16k) base page size on x86

[Pedro Falcato <pfalcato@suse.de>]

On Thu, Feb 19, 2026 at 04:53:10PM +0100, David Hildenbrand (Arm) wrote:
> On 2/19/26 16:50, Kiryl Shutsemau wrote:
> > On Thu, Feb 19, 2026 at 03:33:47PM +0000, Pedro Falcato wrote:
> > > On Thu, Feb 19, 2026 at 03:08:51PM +0000, Kiryl Shutsemau wrote:
> > > > No, there's no new hardware (that I know of). I want to explore what page size
> > > > means.
> > > > 
> > > > The kernel uses the same value - PAGE_SIZE - for two things:
> > > > 
> > > >    - the order-0 buddy allocation size;
> > > > 
> > > >    - the granularity of virtual address space mapping;
> > > > 
> > > > I think we can benefit from separating these two meanings and allowing
> > > > order-0 allocations to be larger than the virtual address space covered by a
> > > > PTE entry.
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > Doesn't this idea make less sense these days, with mTHP? Simply by toggling one
> > > of the entries in /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage.
> > 
> > mTHP is still best effort. This is way you don't need to care about
> > fragmentation, you will get your 64k page as long as you have free
> > memory.
> > 
> > > > The main motivation is scalability. Managing memory on multi-terabyte
> > > > machines in 4k is suboptimal, to say the least.
> > > > 
> > > > Potential benefits of the approach (assuming 64k pages):
> > > > 
> > > >    - The order-0 page size cuts struct page overhead by a factor of 16. From
> > > >      ~1.6% of RAM to ~0.1%;
> > > > 
> > > >    - TLB wins on machines with TLB coalescing as long as mapping is naturally
> > > >      aligned;
> > > > 
> > > >    - Order-5 allocation is 2M, resulting in less pressure on the zone lock;
> > > > 
> > > >    - 1G pages are within possibility for the buddy allocator - order-14
> > > >      allocation. It can open the road to 1G THPs.
> > > > 
> > > >    - As with THP, fewer pages - less pressure on the LRU lock;
> > > 
> > > We could perhaps add a way to enforce a min_order globally on the page cache,
> > > as a way to address it.
> > 
> > Raising min_order is not free. I puts more pressure on page allocator.
> > 
> > > There are some points there which aren't addressed by mTHP work in any way
> > > (1G THPs for one), others which are being addressed separately (memdesc work
> > > trying to cut down on struct page overhead).
> > > 
> > > (I also don't understand your point about order-5 allocation, AFAIK pcp will
> > > cache up to COSTLY_ORDER (3) and PMD order, but I'm probably not seeing the
> > > full picture)
> > 
> > With higher base page size, page allocator doesn't need to do as much
> > work to merge/split buddy pages. So serving the same 2M as order-5 is
> > cheaper than order-9.
> 
> I think the idea is that if most of your allocations (anon + pagecache) are
> 64k instead of 4k, on average, you'll just naturally do less merging
> splitting.

Yep. That plus slab_min_order would hopefully yield a system where 90%+
(depending on how your filesystem's buffer cache works) allocations are 64K.

-- 
Pedro