8400M GS : Low performences

[Keyper7]

Nvidiaaa... All we are asking for is a PowerMizer checkbox in nvidia-settings... Pretty please?

[AaronP]

Originally Posted by Keyper7

Nvidiaaa... All we are asking for is a PowerMizer checkbox in nvidia-settings... Pretty please?

A PowerMizer control panel in nvidia-settings is planned for a future driver release. Note that there will be some caveats, and the driver won't always be able to honor your perf. level requests exactly. For example, if you tell it to stay in perf. level 0 on a laptop and then plug in a high-resolution external display, the driver may need to increase the performance level just to be able to display the desktop.

[Keyper7]

Great! The answer I've been expecting for a long time, thank you!

[jdaniul]

Until the control panel is finished, a slightly different entry in /etc/modprobe.conf will help for laptop users:

options nvidia NVreg_RegistryDwords="PerfLevelSrc=0x3322"


This will lock the card at run level 2 when plugged in, but let powermizer throttle down the card as normal on battery.

[Keyper7]

Really? That sounds like... everything I need. Gonna test it soon.

EDIT: Seems to work! Thanks a lot for the tip.

[theophane]

Any feedback regarding the new 173.14.05 drivers ?

After setup, I get a nice black screen.

[JofArnold]

Worked for me, but the performance gains were negligible. Still slow without xserver.

(Dell M4300, QuadroFX 360M, Hardy)

[aviynw]

Are you sure the poor 2d rendering isn't being caused by the processor getting too hot. This seems to be the case with me. It's not consistent. But sometimes the processor will idle at 90C. My laptop automatically shuts off when it reaches 100c. Even if I let it cool off after it reaches those high temperatures the 2d rendering stays slow. I tried adding that line to my modprobe.conf and lmsensor (a tempature monitoring program) was reporting that my processor was significantly cooler than before. However, turns out lmsensors just started lying because I purposely blocked my fan and it felt as hot as it did when it reaches 90c but lmsensors reported very little change. The nvidia control center also recognizes my 8400m gs card as having 256 mb of memory when my bios and windows recognizes it as only having 128 mb. I bought my 1420 laptop from dell thinking that dell downgraded the memory from 256 mb to 128 mb and lowered the clock speed. If linux isn't lowering the clock speed and recognizes a different amount of memory could this be leading to the overheating. Anyone else who experiences slow 2d performance have other issues like these?
Since I added that line to modprobe.conf I also think the nvidia-control center is reporting wrong temperatures. Dell might have intended the graphics card to run slower in order to protect the other components. Pretty sure it's my processor that's causing the problem because start using my computer and my graphics card reaches 70c it doesn't start getting slow. Only after it stays like that for a while. The only difference is that my processor gets hotter in that time

[JofArnold]

No overheating issues for me. It seems like Compiz is not being accelarated at all for me (CPU doing all the work :S)

[RensoreK]

I would like to say this is an nVidia driver issue. I have tried running Compiz-Fusion on a 8600GT PCI-E Card (256MB). The performance is somewhat choppy. This is using NATIVE not XGL. I have tried 100.xx, 169.xx, 171.xx.

I have also noticed performance is excellent except somewhere along the way X process and Compiz process consume all CPU (on an Athlon X2 3800+). The only way to drop CPU usage is to close all users instances of X/Compiz (usually a full system restart does the trick.) I am unaware exactly what causes it to spike but I don't run games on this system (Except for an OpenGL screensaver).

It would be great if nVidia would write better Linux drivers because we are still customers, we purchase their hardware we just choose a different operating system.

I have heard several people complain about problems on 8xxx cards and a few 9xxx cards. I've been searching for solutions all over the web and this is the only thread where people realize something is wrong with these boards/GPU and the drivers.

[theophane]

Originally Posted by RensoreK

It would be great if nVidia would write better Linux drivers because we are still customers, we purchase their hardware we just choose a different operating system.

But we only get Nvidia's

[theophane]

Allright, now.

I tried the new 173.14.05 drivers under Mandriva 2008.1 and I still have terrible performances and that same laggy compiz.
I even get that kind of CPU (Intel Core2 Duo T7300) behaviour while scrolling down in Firefox on ubuntu-fr.org :



Once again, please, could any Nvidia techie just make a statement on this 8400M GS issue.
I just want to know what's the problem and when it will be fixed (or if it will be fixed, or if it CAN be fixed...).
I have had obvious performances issues with each and every single driver release on all distros I've tried (Mandriva, Ubuntu, Fedora and Suse).