Should there be an option to disable Powermizer?

[upstaked]

I voted yes, but totally getting rid of it is definitely the wrong idea.

What needs to be done is for PowerMizer to be tweakable at runtime. I.e., make it stick to level 3, or to level 1. Or set the max level to 2.

And no, I don't want developer's idea of presets that I could set when modprobe-ing, neither nvidia's messing about with acpi, thank you very much.

I want to decide myself whether it should stick to the highest level when on AC power, and downgrade it when I'm AFK for more than 10 minutes. I want to force it to the lowest level when I'm left with 10% laptop battery, but not before. But I might want to never let it go past level 2 when under 50% battery.

You only need to implement this:
$ nvidia-settings -a PowerMizerMinLevel=x
$ nvidia-settings -a PowerMizerMaxLevel=x
If MinLevel == MaxLevel, you're effectively locked into that level. And to top it up:
$ nvidia-settings -a PowerMizerDelay=x # seconds before it switches to lower level

You think sane defaults are good for non-tech-savvy users? Great, but let the rest of us tweak them to our heart's content.

[busbus]

yes dk75, i have 4 levels but i'd rather be satisfied with one working level
i have

169,100
275,300
400,300 and
500, 800
(core, memory)

i tried to overclock the lower two levels to get full performance but got nothing but artifacts (yes i set the voltages and everything right, at least i think so. there also was a thread on the mvktech forums that described it pretty well). according to the notebook producer the card they put into the notebook (9600 gt) is an mxm module, but the vbios is somehow linked to the system bios, which might be an explanation for the resulting artifacts.
btw. could it be that this also causes the powermizer issues we all experience?

[teox78]

Originally Posted by upstaked

I voted yes, but totally getting rid of it is definitely the wrong idea.

What needs to be done is for PowerMizer to be tweakable at runtime. I.e., make it stick to level 3, or to level 1. Or set the max level to 2.

And no, I don't want developer's idea of presets that I could set when modprobe-ing, neither nvidia's messing about with acpi, thank you very much.

I want to decide myself whether it should stick to the highest level when on AC power, and downgrade it when I'm AFK for more than 10 minutes. I want to force it to the lowest level when I'm left with 10% laptop battery, but not before. But I might want to never let it go past level 2 when under 50% battery.

You only need to implement this:
$ nvidia-settings -a PowerMizerMinLevel=x
$ nvidia-settings -a PowerMizerMaxLevel=x
If MinLevel == MaxLevel, you're effectively locked into that level. And to top it up:
$ nvidia-settings -a PowerMizerDelay=x # seconds before it switches to lower level

You think sane defaults are good for non-tech-savvy users? Great, but let the rest of us tweak them to our heart's content.

According to me, this would be the best solution !
Of course, if this would take 3 months of NVidia development, than start giving us at least the possiblity to disable Powermizer; but,please, do something about it because it seems NVidia is just ignoring this problem which is not negligible!

[kantlivelong]

Gonna BUMP this up

[RenZ0]

The biggest problem with nvidia is the lack of communication.

[kantlivelong]

180.35 - no improvements

[busbus]

hmm, somehow that does not surprise me....

[dirtyboy]

Hmm... If I turn off my second monitor, via nvidia-settings, it appears to work fine...

[kantlivelong]

BUMP

54 votes and not one dev has responded yet.. Obviously nvidia is ignoring the issue...

Apparently VDPAU is more important then running the proper clock speed..

Im just wondering how well VDPAU works when your GPU is running @ 1/4 its speed!!!!



US -> <- Nvidia

[mfb]

I'm also really annoyed by this bug. I've bought an NVIDIA system especially because the NVIDIA-support of Linux is so well known and now I'm really disappointed. My 9600M GT will only switch between powerlevels 0 and 1, it will never go to 3D clocks. If I try to run anything that demands a bit of the graphics card I'm screwed because I'm stuck with those 2D+ clocks.

How hard can it be to fix this NVIDIA? It must be some kind of an error in the detection of the best powerlevel. If it's to hard to fix just give us an option to force it to a specific powerlevel so that we can at least use that till a proper fix is available.

[perfectska04]

I don't really have issues with Powermizer, as it seems to scale my 8600M GT properly. I would, however, welcome the ability to set the power-level... If possible, I'd force the lowest performance mode whenever I'm on battery power.

[dirtyboy]

Originally Posted by kantlivelong

54 votes and not one dev has responded yet

To be fair, there are two no votes.