Re: [RFC] synchronized CPU count registers on SMP machines

[Greg Lindahl <lindahl@keyresearch.com>]

On Thu, Jun 05, 2003 at 09:53:48AM -0700, Jun Sun wrote:

> 1) yes, it is always possible to use some external system-wide
> timer source, if available, to solve this problem.  However, that could
> get tricky too, and I wanted to do something generic which is hopefully 
> applicable to more systems.

Such sources are generally both much lower resolution, and they take a
long time to read. But a _consistent_ but higher overhead, lower
resolution number is better than an inconsistent number.

greg