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Open-Source NVIDIA Driver Steps Up Its Game & Runs Much Faster
An anonymous reader writes "With the Linux 3.16 kernel the Nouveau driver now supports re-clocking for letting the NVIDIA GPU cores and video memory on this reverse-engineered NVIDIA driver run at their designed frequencies. Up to now the Nouveau driver has been handicapped to running at whatever (generally low) clock frequencies the video BIOS programmed the hardware to at boot time, but with Linux 3.16 is experimental support for up-clocking to the hardware-rated speeds. The results show the open-source NVIDIA driver running multiple times faster, but it doesn't work for all NVIDIA hardware, causes lock-ups for some GPUs at some frequencies, and isn't yet dynamically controlled. However, it appears to be the biggest break-through in years for this open-source NVIDIA driver that up to now has been too slow for most Linux games."
This isn't about overclocking. Most GPUs get set to a power saving speed for boot that is way below their maximal factory rated capacity. A 1GHz GPU could well be clocked at 300MHz or even lower during boot by the BIOS settings.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
BIOSes would generally set it to a default, low clock-speed.
This is for setting it to the proper (non-overclocked) speed.
So based on this article it sounds like overclocking your video card is something everyone should do?
As the sibling comment says, that's not what the article says at all.
With that said, yes, overclocking your video card is something pretty much everyone should do. Video cards are now typically sold with considerable headroom, and manufacturers actually bundle overclocking tools with the cards. Whether the idea here is to stop throwing away low-binned GPUs or to make customers feel better about their purchases, either way you do want to overclock your video card. I got one extra FPS out of furmark at 1920x1200 on a 450GTS (cheap used, relatively low power budget.)
Unfortunately, this card either can't be overclocked on Linux, or I need another driver. Whether I set coolbits to 1, 4, 5, 12, 13 or whatever, I never get overclocking options. So I guess I won't be buying any linux games which have fancy graphics. I can only use the full power of my system under windows.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'm against the rampant indiscriminate prescription of drugs, driven by money thirsty bigpharma.
but I can tell the truth/how it is (from my perspective @ least), you're in need of drugs
Kudos to the Nouveau team for reaching this exciting milestone!
If they tested side by side with the closed source driver from Nvidia, where does this put them in terms of performance?
How long until an average user will chose the nouveau driver over the closed source driver, if said user doesn't care about licensing or building from source, but is looking for out of the box performance? Where does that put them in comparison with the Nvidia driver on Windows?
Personally, this project is not very relevant to me since I have no qualms about using the closed source driver which is good enough for my purposes, but I'm not a gamer. I really hope someone like Valve is sponsoring this development because it sounds like a lot of tedious, hard work to be doing pro bono.
There is a high quality proprietary driver made by NVIDIA.
This is about an alternative open-source driver made by hobbyists which is much slower than the real thing.
Unfortunately, this card either can't be overclocked on Linux, or I need another driver. Whether I set coolbits to 1, 4, 5, 12, 13 or whatever, I never get overclocking options. So I guess I won't be buying any linux games which have fancy graphics. I can only use the full power of my system under windows.
Then why do you use Linux? I always choose the operating system which allows me to utilize my hardware to the greatest extent. Right now I'm using Linux, because in this case I get higher OpenGL support for the old Intel gen4 hardware.
I know that NV2A is a lumpy problem, but I'd sure like to know if there's been any progress on that front. I googled around a little bit and didn't see anything, but that is hardly an exhaustive search. My understanding was that someone was going to have to get passionate about the project to move it forwards, and I suppose that's unlikely to happen now, but there's still a lot of 360s out there in the world and they still have 720p/1080i and digital audio out, they're a pretty decent display box.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Does your choice of operating system preclude your ability to construct sentences in English?
Clearly, you are a native English speaker. What happened to you, lad?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Clearly, you are a native English speaker. What happened to you, lad?
His speech double-plus good.
Obviously, the language of the future will in fact have the double-plusses in it, but it will be missing some articles. This lad is a time-traveler!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Then why do you use Linux?
I use Linux when I want to do secure things, like banking. I don't trust Microsoft to handle paypal, let alone online banking. I use windows when I want to play games. The right tool for the job. I will do some light surfing on Windows with firefox, noscript, ghostery, adblock plus, but I don't trust it* with anything important, e.g. if I see something I want to eBay I will go ahead and log into eBay so I can buy it, but I stop short of entering my paypal password and I go handle the payment later, when I'm booted into Linux.
( * OK, I trust Windows enough to dual-boot and keep the HDD connected. I suppose a malicious worm could read ext. As soon as I get this other PC recapped I'm going to move my linux disk there and it will be a non-issue.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'm glad that it got fixed, but why haven't I ever before heard about this constrainment in the Nouveau driver? Once again, were the open source propellerheads so excited about open source, that they never honestly mentioned this glooming limitation in any discussions? :(
What next? "Oh, we forgot to mention that all vertex shaders have been software-emulated in Mesa for the last 10 years. Well, we've finally fixed it."
Does your choice of operating system preclude your ability to construct sentences in English?
Some people just cannot write properly. Their mind might not be well-suited for it. APK might speak completely fluently face-to-face, but he might not be able to put his thoughts as text as elegantly. I have noticed that some people are like that, or vice versa: that they speak crummily but write perfectly.
From the front page of the nouveau wiki (http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/):
"""
Performance level selection (also known as "reclocking") is not supported yet. Expect low 3D performance on laptops using a Tesla GPU and all Fermi/Kepler cards. (see CodeNames)
"""
So... don't know why you haven't heard it before... perhaps you don't look for things?
will the new driver for the Linux fix the slow I have detected with the Firefox?
No. Firefox is slow because you are connected to the Internet with a 56K modem. A faster GPU won't fix that.
I said GOOD DAY!
No, the year of the Linux desktop is over.
We used to have Gnome 2, KDE 2 and 3, OpenOffice, Mozilla, Flash Player and many useful tools against Windows XP. It was superior technology, but the impact was limited (LiMuX?).
OpenOffice is in ruins (and hardly better than 10 years ago), the Gnome community is split, and KDE keeps getting fatter. Meanwhile Windows 7 is a half decent operating system, and Office 2007 has upped the game considerably. Even Google targets Linux only for some of their products.
The battle for the desktop is over and lost.
Even though this is a good step in the right direction, Nouveau still isn't even stable enough for general consumption, let alone seriously competitive with features or performance of nVidia's binary-only driver.
It annoys the heck out of me that Mint switched to installing nouveau by default and especially without any alternative graphics driver option at install time, as on my laptop at least, as soon as Nouveau starts it crashes and locks up the whole PC. Trendy political correctness for (broken) open source shouldn't ever trump a binary driver if it actually works better, or especialy if it is the only option that works at all in some cases.
Add on top of that the fact that Mint devs also removed Ubuntu's boot menu option to install Linux before X starts, means the retarded decision to use nouveau by default makes it impossible for me and presumably therefore many others to install Mint from scratch without some obscure and what should be completely unnecessary hacking every time.
If even just installing Mint is borked, its really going to put off people who are trying Linux for the first time.
P.S.=> You really have issues. Lastly - are you on topic? No... grow up please.
YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND TIME CUBE.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
And the article states that the reason it is slower is because it does not overclock the card by a factor or two or three. Or maybe it is making up for being so slow by overclocking the card?
Either way the article is stating. "NVidia Linux users, your graphical woes are over. Download this update and overclock your card to many times its original speed". I am asking if that advice is good advice? If 2X-overclocking a graphics card just something everyone with an NVidia card should do?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Why would the BIOS underclock it to something below the recommended speed?
Are you implying that the proprietary drivers for Linux and Windows default to overclocking to this "proper" speed?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
It's a very good start but until they can manage dynamic clocking, proper monitoring of GPU, RAM and PCB temperature, and then adjust fan speeds or fallback lower in case of overheat, you are better be very careful with this recent feature.
Léa Gris
The summary is misleading. It's not about overclocking at all, but actually letting your NVidia card run at full speed under Nouveau. See, Nouveau doesn't have the ability to dynamically set your GPU's clock, so it boots in the normal low power state and then can never go up, no matter what.
Using the proprietary driver, the card is clocked based upon graphics needs.
Under Nouveau say, a GT640 rev 2 would always run at 405Mhz, NOT the full 1124 Mhz even if you ran a 3D using application. Using the proprietary driver, if you're just browsing the web and then start up something uses 3D it'll ramp right up to full speed.
Maybe you should start. If I were you I'd start with anti-psychotics.
In prior discussions APK kept dodging questions about whether or not he has been diagnosed as mentally ill in some way by a psychologist or psychiatrist. He never would say yes or no to that one
and why in arse cunting fuck should he? what business is that of anyone about anyone on here?
More or less, that's exactly what happens.
The card's official drivers will have multiple known good power states configured - a low power, low performance configuration for an idle desktop, a high power, high performance mode for demanding games or CAD/CAM work, and something in the middle for older titles that don't need the cards full performance potential. This is what the 'adaptive' and 'prefer maximum performance' options in nvidia's windows drivers refer to.
For mine, under windows, these modes are 51Mhz, 405Mhz, and 830Mhz. With a monitoring program up (nvidia inspector) I can actually track the card stepping between these performance modes as the demands on it change. For example, at desktop it's at 51MHz. If I load chrome, I can see the card step up to 830MHz in anticipation of a high load as chrome loads its assets into video memory. Then that steps down to 405mhz as the driver realises there's no continuing load, then back down to 51Mhz a few seconds later, as the load is so low that even the 405Mhz mode is overkill.
When the machine's starting, the card isn't going to have any load placed on it. Therefore, it makes sense to start it using the low-power configuration.
The firefox is always slow. It has been slow since it was the netscape.
The BIOS has safe default settings that do not require active monitoring or even knowing the ambient temperature. (Consider a laptop that had been left an a car overnight during winter. When booting you need to have high voltage and low frequency to get it to initially work. That is not necessarily a typical condition, but the system when booting does not know anything yet.)
Once the driver is running it can start adjusting things to account for ambient temperature, work load, relative usage of other system components, etc. However, not this from the summary "isn't yet dynamically controlled". That means that the driver had the ability now to change the frequency, but does not yet have the monitoring to do it safely.
The chip is specced to run at a specific speed.. when the full performance is not needed, the drivers underclock it to save power and heat. same is true for the ram on the card too. Voltages and memory timings also scale too, which might be why some cards are having trouble at their highest settings. Nouveau might not set the right timings and voltages for those clocks.
So technically the card is not 'overclocked' unless it's run beyond the manufacturer set top speed and voltage.
Don't taunt him. I really don't need to read about another mall shooting.
(I've got $5 that says he's already written at least one manifesto and has a YouTube video about how all women are whores except his grandma)
You are welcome on my lawn.
oh fuck off you prat
See, here's the thing. It is possible to write so badly that ALL of your posts become "off-topic".
I'm a retired English prof. When my only tool is a hammer, I want to drive every crooked, rusty nail I see. Got paid pretty well, too. I gave you this one for free, because that's the kind of yegg I am.
You are welcome on my lawn.
power saving. the clocks go up and down all the time in use.
it's not really overclocking or underclocking but a mhz management feature - of course, drivers without this feature would be quite useless.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.