computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computer, computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and the development of both computer hardware, hardware and softw ...

, Page Size Extension (PSE) refers to a feature of

x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel, based on the 8086 microprocessor and its 8-bit-external-bus variant, the 8088. Th ...

processors that allows for pages larger than the traditional 4

KiB The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable un ...

size. It was introduced in the original

Pentium Pentium is a series of x86 architecture-compatible microprocessors produced by Intel from 1993 to 2023. The Pentium (original), original Pentium was Intel's fifth generation processor, succeeding the i486; Pentium was Intel's flagship proce ...

processor, but it was only publicly documented by

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

with the release of the

Pentium Pro The Pentium Pro is a sixth-generation x86 microprocessor developed and manufactured by Intel and introduced on November 1, 1995. It implements the P6 (microarchitecture), P6 microarchitecture (sometimes termed i686), and was the first x86 Intel C ...

. The

CPUID In the x86 architecture, the CPUID instruction (identified by a CPUID opcode) is a processor supplementary instruction (its name derived from " CPU Identification") allowing software to discover details of the processor. It was introduced by Int ...

instruction can be used to identify the availability of PSE on x86

CPU A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor, or just processor, is the primary processor in a given computer. Its electronic circuitry executes instructions of a computer program, such as arithmetic, log ...

Motivation

Imagine the following scenario: An application program requests a 1

MiB The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable un ...

memory block. In order to fulfill this request, an operating system that supports paging and that is running on older

CPUs will have to allocate 256

page Page most commonly refers to: * Page (paper), one side of a leaf of paper, as in a book Page, PAGE, pages, or paging may also refer to: Roles * Page (assistance occupation), a professional occupation * Page (servant), traditionally a young m ...

s of 4 KiB each. An overhead of 1 KiB of memory is required for maintaining page directories and page tables. When accessing this 1 MiB memory, each of the 256 page entries would be cached in the

translation lookaside buffer A translation lookaside buffer (TLB) is a memory CPU cache, cache that stores the recent translations of virtual memory address to a physical memory Memory_address, location. It is used to reduce the time taken to access a user memory location. It ...

(TLB; a cache that remembers virtual address to physical address translations for faster lookup on subsequent memory requests). Cluttering the TLB is possibly one of the largest disadvantages of having several page entries for what could have been allocated in one single memory block. If the TLB gets filled, then a TLB entry would have to be freed, the page directory and page tables would have to be “walked” in memory, and finally, the memory would be accessed and the new entry would be brought into the TLB. This is a severe performance penalty and was possibly the largest motivation for augmenting the x86 architecture with larger page sizes. The PSE allows for page sizes of 4 MiB to exist along with 4 KiB pages. The 1 MiB request described previously would easily be fulfilled with a single 4 MiB page, and it would require only one TLB entry. However, the disadvantage of using larger page sizes is

internal fragmentation In computer storage, fragmentation is a phenomenon in the computer system which involves the distribution of data in to smaller pieces which storage space, such as computer memory or a hard drive, is used inefficiently, reducing capacity or perfo ...

Operation

In traditional 32-bit

protected mode In computing, protected mode, also called protected virtual address mode, is an operational mode of x86-compatible central processing units (CPUs). It allows system software to use features such as Memory_segmentation, segmentation, virtual mem ...

, x86 processors use a two-level page translation scheme, where the

control register A control register is a processor register that changes or controls the general behavior of a CPU or other digital device. Common tasks performed by control registers include interrupt control, switching the addressing mode, paging control, and ...

CR3 points to a single 4 KiB-long ''page directory'', which is divided into 1024 × 4-byte entries that point to 4 KiB-long

page table A page table is a data structure used by a virtual memory system in a computer to store mappings between virtual addresses and physical addresses. Virtual addresses are used by the program executed by the accessing process, while physical addr ...

s, similarly consisting of 1024 × 4-byte entries pointing to 4 KiB-long pages. Enabling PSE (by setting bit 4, ''PSE'', of the system register CR4) changes this scheme. The entries in the page directory have an additional flag, in bit 7, named PS (for ''page size''). This flag was ignored without PSE, but now, the page-directory entry with PS set to 1 does not point to a page table, but to a single large 4 MiB page. The page-directory entry with PS set to 0 behaves as without PSE. If newer

PSE-36 In computing, PSE-36 (36-bit Page Size Extension) refers to a feature of x86 processors that extends the physical memory addressing capabilities from 32 bits to 36 bits, allowing addressing to up to 64 GB of memory. Compared to the Physical Ad ...

capability is available on the CPU, as checked using the

instruction, then 4 more bits, in addition to normal 10 bits, are used inside a page-directory entry pointing to a large page. This allows a large page to be located in 36-bit address space. If

Physical Address Extension In computing, Physical Address Extension (PAE), sometimes referred to as Page Address Extension, is a memory management feature for the x86 architecture. PAE was first introduced by Intel in the Pentium Pro, and later by AMD in the Athlon process ...

(PAE) is used, the size of large pages is reduced from 4 MiB down to 2 MiB, and PSE is always enabled, regardless of the PSE bit in CR4.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Intel 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developer's Manuals

Understanding 4M Page Size Extensions on the Pentium Processor
(Robert R. Collins) X86 architecture Virtual memory