Should there be an option to disable Powermizer?

[pferraro]

On a notebook, I prefer to disable powermizer (i.e. full performance) on AC and enable powermizer (i.e. adaptive clock) on battery.

To do this, I added the following line to /etc/modprobe.d/options:

options nvidia NVreg_RegistryDwords="PerfLevelSrc=0x3322"

Different values for PerfLevelSrc provide different behavior:
0×2222 = disable powermizer on AC and battery
0×2233 = enable powermizer on AC, disable powermizer on battery
0×3322 = disable powermizer on AC, enable powermizer on battery (my setting)
0×3333 = enable powermizer on AC and battery

Source: http://daemonadvocate.blogspot.com/2...owermizer.html

I haven't yet figured out how to specify the power mode to use when powermizer is disabled (e.g. say I wanted to disable powermizer always, but use full power on AC, and lowest power on battery). Any ideas?

[GIDZzz]

I just wonder about one thing: are all those problems really a PowerMizer issue? In my case (8800M GTX) performance is cut by half both with and without drivers loaded. It probably means that, to prevent emission of excessive heat in absence of PowerMizer, level 1 is the default and it needs to be somehow forced in order to go higher, what PowerMizer is responsible for. In such case, wouldn't getting rid of it have the same effect as unloading the drivers? This is why I think it needs to be fixed, not disabled.

There already seems to be a way to turn the thing off with xorg.conf and, aside from that level 1 barrier (not necessarily directly caused by PowerMizer), it works for me, so by voting 'yes' I mean a possibility to control it without restarting X, preferably that way:

Originally Posted by damentz

3 governors:
performance (essentially off, in your case kernelOfTruth)
powersave (lowest clock/memory/voltage, regardless of usage)
ondemand (raise clock/memory/voltage to factory defaults on usage and reduce to lowest under no demand)

[dk75]

delete otpions from modporbe.d and add it to xorg.conf to gfx card section:

Option	"RegistryDwords"	"PowerMizerEnable=0x1; PerfLevelSrc=0x2222; PowerMizerDefault=0x3; PowerMizerDefaultAC=0x1"

[shaundennie]

I'd like to see powermizer control as well but, not via some clumsy GUI. Instead I should be able to set it via "nvidia-settings -a". Some people have course grained control like this anyway via "nvidia-settings -q all" and it's incredibly useful for building a customized powermizer profile. For example, I keep the GPU scaling on at all times but, I have a script that detects when I'm on the workspace I keep Firefox on. Chances are good that I'll need full power to scroll smoothly so, as soon as the script detects I'm on the workspace, and, if I'm on AC power or on battery and have set a flag (I call it the Go Fast Flag), it does an "nvidia-settings -q all" to fire the GPU up to max speed and keeps doing that every 25 seconds until I leave that workspace.

Not everyone is going to take the time to implement complex powermizer rules but, for those who do, having more fine grained control over it via the command line would be incredibly useful. You can keep your entire system cooler by enabling powermizer and still get the performance you need when it's needed.

[TheBlackCat]

pferraro, GIDZzz, and dk75: those options do not work for a great many people. They used to, but they don't anymore. I don't know whether they were inadvertently broken by Nvidia during some update or whether they were intentionally disabled by them, but presently those options, either in xorg.conf or modprobe, do absolutely nothing for many people. That is why this issue is being discussed in the first place.

[dk75]

dunno, it work's for me perfectly fine

--

• Ubuntu 8.10 x86_64
• GF9500GT 256MB DDR3
• NVIDIA driver 180.29
• Xorg 1.5.2

[pferraro]

I've never had any problem getting the modprobe.d options to work - I suspect anyone who does have trouble is not defining them in the location appropriate for their distro.

But you missed the whole point of my post...
I was making people aware of other values for the PerfLevelSrc registry option (regardless of where/how you define it). I've only ever seen people suggest the 0x2222 value which disables powermizer completely. That's not always ideal. Wanna disable frequency scaling on AC only, but re-enable it when unplugged to save battery life? Use PerfLevelSrc=0x3322 instead.

[dk75]

but isn't it's wrong thread for that?

There's http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=125104 where is link for http://tutanhamon.com.ua/technovodst...A-UNIX-driver/ where everything is said already.

And this thread is not for solution "how to do it yourself" but for poll "whenever it should be swichable".

[busbus]

at least for me the problem is not that powermizer does nothing, the problem is that the faster 2 out of 4 performance levels are never touched as if they were unknown to the driver, or the driver limited to 2 levels or some sort of index to the performance table wrong or whatever....
fact is that the two modes tagged 3d and extra are not used by the driver

[dk75]

whoa, you have more than 2 performance level? I have only two: 0 ( "2D Clock Frequencies" ) and 1 ( "3D Clock Frequencies" ) besides of 3 "PerformanceMode" of course.

I've overclocked Level0 from "200,100" to "200,401" and I've left Level1 untouched at "550,800" - 100MHz memory in 2D mode is strange since even 2D needs a decent speed of memory copying.

So... couldn't you just overclock your Level1 to level of Level3? I know it's "dirty hack" but hey, you don't have any other options right now.


What's the output of this command:

nvidia-settings -q GPUPowerSource -t

[GIDZzz]

Originally Posted by TheBlackCat

pferraro, GIDZzz, and dk75: those options do not work for a great many people. They used to, but they don't anymore. I don't know whether they were inadvertently broken by Nvidia during some update or whether they were intentionally disabled by them, but presently those options, either in xorg.conf or modprobe, do absolutely nothing for many people. That is why this issue is being discussed in the first place.

What I meant is that when I use nv driver or no driver at all, my clocks are stuck at level 1 of 0-3, so why would disabling PowerMizer fix it? Methinks besides of downclocking the card, it is also supposed to unlock the higher, otherwise unaccessible levels and that is the part, which is broken for me. So, the main point was a doubt about simply turning PowerMizer off being a solution for decreased performance, which people like kantlivelong, busbus or myself experience.

Originally Posted by dk75

I've overclocked Level0 from "200,100" to "200,401" and I've left Level1 untouched at "550,800" - 100MHz memory in 2D mode is strange since even 2D needs a decent speed of memory copying.

So... couldn't you just overclock your Level1 to level of Level3? I know it's "dirty hack" but hey, you don't have any other options right now.

Coolbits are broken on mobile platforms, leaving video bios hacking as the only way to do some overclocking. Or is there another, easy method?

Originally Posted by dk75

What's the output of this command:

nvidia-settings -q GPUPowerSource -t

Nope, it's not the battery.

[kantlivelong]

bump