Intel CPU Kernel bug and Resolve preformance hit?

https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comme ... _incoming/

https://hothardware.com/news/intel-cpu- ... dows-macos

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/c ... l_cpu_bug/

This effects ALL modern intel CPUs and all three major Operating systems, Windows/MacOS/Linux.

Apparently AMD CPUs are not effected.

Once Microsoft, Apple, and various Linux distros issue a software patch to address the intel CPU kernel bug, certain CPU tasks called "system calls" will receive about 30% performance degradation hit.

As I understand it, a "system call" is needed every time a program needs disk and network I/O......which I imagine Resolve does a lot.

Can anyone from Blackmagic comment on how this will effect Resolve performance on intel based systems.

Should I start looking into AMD Threadripper systems? Is DNxHD media decoding still an issue on AMD CPUs?

I read about this yesterday, but haven't had a chance to dive that deep into it. If it really ends up being a 30% hit, AMD executives will be rubbing their hands together all the way to the bank.

Already fixed in 10.13.2

https://www.macrumors.com/2018/01/03/in ... s-10-13-2/

"Ionescu also says that performance drop on a system with PCID (Process-Context Identifiers), available on most modern Macs, is "minimal," so most users may not see an impact on day-to-day Mac usage."

Already fixed in 10.13.2

https://www.macrumors.com/2018/01/03/in ... s-10-13-2/

"Ionescu also says that performance drop on a system with PCID (Process-Context Identifiers), available on most modern Macs, is "minimal," so most users may not see an impact on day-to-day Mac usage."

That's his placate the stupid people line..... If all you do is surf the web and use Word you wouldn't notice if i took half your cores away. If however you are doing real work, you will see a hit regardless of what OS you use. Intel stock was down as much as 7% today for a reason.

Here at work a handful of us have been sitting around trying to determine exactly what the flaw/bug is, because they haven't announced it yet.

"Bear in mind there are two flaws at play here: one called Meltdown that mostly affects Intel, and what the above article is all about, and another one called Spectre that affects Intel, AMD, and Arm cores."
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/02/intel_cpu_design_flaw/

"The researchers say AMD's Ryzen family is affected by Spectre. Googlers have confirmed AMD FX and AMD Pro cores can allow arbitrary data to be obtained by a user process"
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/04/intel_amd_arm_cpu_vulnerability/

"Linux developers are working furiously to address the flaw in a new kernel update. Expect it soon.
Microsoft is expected to patch the problem during its Patch Tuesday updates on January 9
With macOS High Sierra, it seems as though Apple is already working on the issue."
https://www.pcworld.com/article/3245606/security/intel-x86-cpu-kernel-bug-faq-how-it-affects-pc-mac.html

There's a MS patch out for Win10 (older OS's will reportedly get the update Tuesday), and some of the accounts claim it would have been applied automatically for Win10 users.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/hel ... -kb4056892

Anyone taken note of it? Results?

For those that are interested in the details, this site links to papers about the vulnerabilities written by the researchers that found them.

https://meltdownattack.com/

The issue for Resolve appears to be whether or to what extent it runs on DirectX. Gaming is where most of the benchmarks are and games which don't use DirectX don't appear to be effected significantly by the patch.

The issue for Resolve appears to be whether or to what extent it runs on DirectX. Gaming is where most of the benchmarks are and games which don't use DirectX don't appear to be effected significantly by the patch.

From what I'm seeing Resolve could take a decent hit.

Interacting with the file system requires a context change, and that is the heart of the issue. Some applications could minimize the issue by pre-allocating larger blocks of memory, and then loading stuff from the files system into memory in the background, but that's not really a viable option for applications like resolve.

How much impact it will have on resolve depends on a lot of factors that no one outside of the resolve development group will know.

I don't gaming is representative of performance hit that Resolve might get. Disk IO patterns, logic that most of the processing is spent on etc are too different. Also, directx is not directly related to the problem, it is probably affected due to directx doing more/different system calls than other solutions (opengl etc).

From the Spectre white paper I get the impression that possible exploits made possible by speculative execution range from hard to patch to not possible to patch to not clear if patch works or not. Only real way to remove the problem is to change the processor logic which is also not an easy feat.

Hi,
I installed the kb4056892. Not really found a difference 'a priori'
Windows update: W10 - 1709 - 16299.192
(we'll see for later benchmarck ... I do not have time for the moment but on a 4K DCI during this WE)

My CPU does not have an integrated GPU so I do not see what needs to be improved. I will check.

After installing the patch, some news ..

For Davinci Resolve, other standard software: no edge effects. No difference

Only edge effects noted: ASUS software (those of my mobo) that communicate directly with the OS or the bios are blocked

Workaround: A beta version is in progress and works at 95%. Wait ?
In short: do not hesitate to do it. As usual: make backups and be sure that its backup is really usable.

I'v got a performance drop during playng CRM Raw files fom Canon C200. Macbook pro mid 2015 Radeon 370X 2GB video memory timeline resolution 2048X1080 DCI 25.00 fps ( without noise reduction, only lut and basic corrections)

Before patch - 16-17 fps
After patch 11-12 fps

Updated:
At HP Omen 15 ax001ns NVidia 960M 4GB video memory the same setup gives 20-21 fps

Since it also turns out you need new CPU microcode, Intel has released updates to manufacturers. However, manufacturers like HP has retracted their bios updates containing the fix, since the performance impact is so severe. On my HP Z840 workstation I went from working comfortably with 4.6K raw files to an utter stutter fest with the new bios.

The creator of Linux, Linus Torvalds even went on a rant about Intels Linux patch: https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/22/linus-torvalds-declares-intel-fix-for-meltdown-spectre-complete-and-utter-garbage/

That bad news.

What dangers exist if I choose not to update my systems to patch the bug?

Especially if my workstations are not on the internet, what would be the downside of using the old faster microcode?

As a layman my interpretation is that unless you're running virtual machines or containers that other users or applications have access to, there shouldn't be a problem. This is why cloud computing providers (and their users) are at risk unless everything is patched.

But I'm no expert. Maybe sandboxed environments like Mac App Store apps and Universal Windows Platform apps are affected as well, I don't know.