[Make-wifi-fast] less latency, more filling... for wifi

[Pete Heist]

> On Oct 9, 2017, at 1:13 PM, Dave Taht <dave.taht at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> * Less buffering at the driver.
> 
> Presently (ath9k) there are two-three aggregates stacked up at the driver.
> 
> With a good estimate for how long it will take to service one, forming
> another within that deadline seems feasible, so you only need to have
> one in the hardware itself.
> 
> Simple example: you have data in the hardware projected to take a
> minimum of 4ms to transmit. Don't form a new aggregate and submit it
> to the hardware for 3.5ms.
> 
> I know full well that a "good" estimate is hard, and things like
> mu-mimo complicate things. Still, I'd like to get below 20ms of
> latency within the driver, and this is one way to get there.

For what it’s worth, I’d love to see this. One of the few arguments for doing soft rate limiting with point-to-point WiFi is that it’s still possible, when rates are stable, to achieve lower latency under load than with the new ath9k driver. It would be nice to see that argument disappear. Solid...