GTX 260/280 Clock Throttling While in 3D Apps. An Explanation.

[CHK]

Apparantly XFX doesn't like this feature as well...
I asked XFX why the 275 GTX cards I got never clock down when idle and I got a reply that they locked the clocks to max and this is why I'm not seeing the option for power management with the 190.38 drivers.

[betterdan]

If I remember correctly all my past 3d cards always had lower clocks when idling in Windows. This isn't a new thing.

[ChrisRay]

To those who upgraded their drivers and dont see the driver option. What process are you going through with the uninstallation? I have seen it not correctly enable due to an inproper driver installation.

((IE something I do alot of)) but if you do a full uninstall/reboot into safe mode and install from safe mode. The option will come back. This is usually just the registry getting confused.

[ChrisRay]

If I remember correctly all my past 3d cards always had lower clocks when idling in Windows. This isn't a new thing.

Idling During Windows why not doing something has been a feature since the introduction of the 260/280. However. This feature is different in the fact that it will idle in 3D mode/DirectX apps if the GPU is not under any real load. verses always throttling up.

To those who dont like the feature. The option is there to turn it off. Personally this feature is a godsend to me.

[betterdan]

Why is it making my card jump to full speed while sitting in Windows with maybe IE open? The older drivers it would make my card clock way down while in Windows just using IE. That's what I don't like about it.

Like right now while typing this my card is sitting at max speed of 713 core 1260 memory and I'm typing text into IE wtf? It just dropped to 300 core 100 memory now but it keeps this crap up all the time while doing minor stuff.

[gstanford]

Chris maybe you could suggest to nvidia that they need a third option for clock throttling, so you would end up with the following choices:

Automatic clocking
Force maximum (3D) clocks
Force minimum (2D) clocks

That way everyone should be happy and you won't get complaints like the IE one above.

[betterdan]

Chris maybe you could suggest to nvidia that they need a third option for clock throttling, so you would end up with the following choices:

Automatic clocking
Force maximum (3D) clocks
Force minimum (2D) clocks

That way everyone should be happy and you won't get complaints like the IE one above.

haha yea that would be good and would be exactly like old drivers where in 2d they were set at a certain speed and in 3d they were set at a certain speed.
Probably a dumb question but with Aero in Win 7 or Vista is the card using 3d features? Maybe that's why the speeds keeps going up and down while in Windows.

[gstanford]

Well, nvidia has a good profiling system built into their drivers. It might as well be put to good use.

If nvidia can be bothered differentiating "high quality", "quality", "performance", "high performance" in their profiles (especially nowadays where hardly anyone would drop past 'quality' on g80 and above), then they can and should put the same sort of effort into clock throttling (and indeed any reasonable feature end users would like control over). No-one forces people to actually use the profiles but the options are (and should be) there when a user decides they need them.

[ChrisRay]

While Force 3D minimum clocks has already been brought up. And its been looked into. Its alot more difficult than it sounds to implement. At least in a stable driver.((nobody likes driver stops responding issues)) The idea isn't out of the question. But its not something in the near future either because it will/would require alot more time to get it to work properly without issue.

[betterdan]

So in Windows 7 or Vista is the video card using 3d clocks while idling in Windows? Do the newer cards even have 2d clocks anymore? Do you know what I mean? The older cards used to have 2d clock settings and 3d clock settings. Now with this GTX 275 all I see is 3d clock settings.

[gstanford]

Perhaps the new cards don't have 2D clocks in the strict sense of the word anymore, but, that doesn't mean they can't be clocked down to equivelant levels.

Can't comment on Windows 7, haven't tried it out yet, still getting used to Vista and I use the windows classic look on that even though my hardware is way more than capable of aero glass.

[ChrisRay]

That would be correct. In a sense of the term. GT200's idling system is actually quite advances. We're talking too to the level of shutting down the memory controller as well and voltage regulation. So its not just an issue of lowering the clocks and getting the same results.

Chris

[phaedrusiszen]

Why is it making my card jump to full speed while sitting in Windows with maybe IE open? The older drivers it would make my card clock way down while in Windows just using IE. That's what I don't like about it.

Like right now while typing this my card is sitting at max speed of 713 core 1260 memory and I'm typing text into IE wtf? It just dropped to 300 core 100 memory now but it keeps this crap up all the time while doing minor stuff.

Same here. Initial boot it would clock down properly. However, after firing up any application that used 3D engines, the card would not go back down to it's 300/100 speeds. I ended up dropping back to 186.18 which does clock my card properly.
This is a pretty important feature for me and one of the reason why I decided to go ahead and get a GTX280, despite it's massive power draws. The fact it only pulled massive energy when needed sold me. I'm in Florida, heat is not my friend, nor is my power bill.

[K@in]

I'm running a GTX275 on 190.38 whql drivers, and I'm getting throttling issues when playing Killing Floor/CS windowed in XP. Very annoying. Sometimes it does it three times in a row sometimes never for four hours. When it does clock down the game freezes and I need to minimize it/bring it back up to get it working the way it should.

[noko]

On my Win7 machine with the 8800GTX I am not see this option in the drivers. Just noticed this thread and need to check my 260 machine but on that one I use eVga Precision to set speed anyways since OC. Well if Nvidia has a declock, an OC setting would also be useful as well which if could be profiled would be king. Can't comment further since I am not going into slomo mode which always caused problems for me in the past. A min then a max setting with auto settings which can be profiled seems to be best idea so far.

[Lfctony]

On my Win7 machine with the 8800GTX I am not see this option in the drivers. Just noticed this thread and need to check my 260 machine but on that one I use eVga Precision to set speed anyways since OC. Well if Nvidia has a declock, an OC setting would also be useful as well which if could be profiled would be king. Can't comment further since I am not going into slomo mode which always caused problems for me in the past. A min then a max setting with auto settings which can be profiled seems to be best idea so far.

The 8800GTX doesn't powersave in 3d, it never did. It's either 2D or full power 3D. The GTX260+ can have lower 3D clocks when the load is less...

[noko]

ahhh, thanks there, I thought it did but come to think about it I only had problems when I got my 260 and afterwards until the drivers stopped doing the down clocking.

[nabizko]

I've been hearing as well as dealing with this nonsense problem for over 9 months now. While in a fullscreen App/3D Game the card trips up, it hangs in a 2D (throttled down) power state, requiring a reboot to resume it's fullpowered capabilities.

It's reared its head in XP-> vista->now Win7 environments since my installing the EVGA GTX-260 SSC 216c. A great card, howeva, izabsolutely annoying that I've gotta reboot my comp to get my card to power back up. It's ridiculous! I've tried so many configs short of replacing the card, (I am a 12 year net. admin vet) and I've got nothing. So far, I've decreased the amount of times it happens, as well as discovered a few of the following things those of you with the same issues may find helpful

What is obvious and apparently causing the issue:
1.) if the card is left at its native clocks in certain games, or SLIGHTLY over clocked (<5%) in it will cause the card to trip up, (blank or distorted display, however BGMusic or ambient sounds typically still work) YET, can usually resume playing only after immediate alt-tab to desktop to lower clocks, or Ctrl-Alt-Del "EndTask" and restart the game... =a good 75% chance of the card being hung in a 2D power state.

2.)if you alt-tab to the desktop from a fullscreen 3D app/game, thus throttling down as normal, but becoming hung in that 2D power state. (unless this function is disabled in NVcntrl thanks in part to you Chris (I think) for the new op to do so, or also rivatune )

If it becomes hung, it will not revert no matter how many times you try to adjust the clocks using various clock adj. utilities, changing NVcontrol options, or re-launching any number or variety of 3D titles...sadly, a reboot is required...pray that your progress was recently saved...or because of the horrendous decrease in FPS, you may spend about 3x the time and effort getting to the next save location, aka checkpoint. :thumbdwn:

This I believe, is the point that so many seemingly missed or ignored throughout the majority of this thread...can anyone PLEASE educate me as to a possible fix for this...um, issue, please. I can't believe that only like FIVE posts out of 92..... FIVE!!! were even remotely close to being on topic...ANYWAY!!!! Chris, thanks for providing the direct line to Nvidia, this is priceless, I hope it is regarded as such, not a listening post for how people warm their feet with their PC in Scottsdale.TAnx