TuxClocker 1.0 Released As An Alternative Way Of NVIDIA GPU Overclocking On Linux

[phoronix]

Phoronix: TuxClocker 1.0 Released As An Alternative Way Of NVIDIA GPU Overclocking On Linux

TuxClocker has been in development for several years as another open-source GPU overclocking GUI for Linux. TuxClocker initially provided a Qt5-based user interface for GPU overclocking and ultimately established a D-Bus API as well with the new release. TuxClocker 1.0 was finally released today as the latest update to this Linux GPU overclocking software...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/TuxClocker-1.0

[Barley9432]

It's not clear what the benefit is for NVIDIA users over NVIDIA's existing tools? Is it just because it has a GUI?

[Beryesa]

I wonder if this can have a gray area module to use the broken signing hack

[Keith Myers]

I too wonder what is the supposed benefit of this app over the existing Nvidia X Server Settings application installed by default with the drivers. It is a GUI also and has all the capabilities of this TuxClocker application. It can set fan speeds and set the memory and core clock overclocks. You can set power limits via nvidia-smi and the command line.

[OneTimeShot]

At a guess there are two purposes for this: (1) Create a unified API to access power management across AMD/Intel/Nvidia. (2) Maybe someday there will be an Nvidia Open Source driver, so we need a OS GUI to control the fans.

[Lurkki]

I too wonder what is the supposed benefit of this app over the existing Nvidia X Server Settings application

With regards to Nvidia, the advantage is that it shows a couple properties missing from nvidia-settings GUI, namely shutdown temperature, memory utilization (not % VRAM used), voltage reading and setting (where supported) and as you say, power limits.

nvidia-settings also doesn't have parametrizing fan speed or other properties. Not sure it can load overclock settings from a profile for example but that's not easily discoverable at least.

[Lurkki]

At a guess there are two purposes for this: (1) Create a unified API to access power management across AMD/Intel/Nvidia. (2) Maybe someday there will be an Nvidia Open Source driver, so we need a OS GUI to control the fans.

The motivation for this release was frustrations with the 0.1.1 GUI, since hardcoded sliders aren't very flexible when AMD GPUs have a varying number of editable pstates; and available Nvidia GPU properties vary too, eg. you can have 1 or 2 fans.

The other reason is that there are a lot of programs that in the end do the same thing: monitor and change your hardware parameters. The plugin system facilitates multiple kinds of devices being supported in one program.

[Keith Myers]

Not sure what you mean by 'parametrizing`. Fan speeds can be set on Auto, or use a slider to set the speed in the GUI. The X Server Settings app displays the 'slowdown' temp for the device. Not sure if this is equivalent to what you call shutdown temp.

The power limits can be set via nvidia-smi and the core and memory clocks and the fan speeds can be set by the nvidia-settings application. Both apps can be called in a script for example. This is the one I use on this daily driver for my BOINC computing.

#!/bin/bash

/usr/bin/nvidia-smi -pm 1

nvidia-smi -i 0 -pl 300
nvidia-smi -i 1 -pl 300
#nvidia-smi -i 2 -pl 200

/usr/bin/nvidia-settings -a "[gpu:0]/GPUPowerMizerMode=1"
/usr/bin/nvidia-settings -a "[gpu:1]/GPUPowerMizerMode=1"
#/usr/bin/nvidia-settings -a "[gpu:2]/GPUPowerMizerMode=1"

/usr/bin/nvidia-settings -a "[gpu:0]/GPUFanControlState=1"
/usr/bin/nvidia-settings -a "[fan:0]/GPUTargetFanSpeed=100"
/usr/bin/nvidia-settings -a "[fan:1]/GPUTargetFanSpeed=100"
/usr/bin/nvidia-settings -a "[gpu:1]/GPUFanControlState=1"
/usr/bin/nvidia-settings -a "[fan:2]/GPUTargetFanSpeed=100"
/usr/bin/nvidia-settings -a "[fan:3]/GPUTargetFanSpeed=100"
#/usr/bin/nvidia-settings -a "[gpu:2]/GPUFanControlState=1"
#/usr/bin/nvidia-settings -a "[fan:4]/GPUTargetFanSpeed=85"
#/usr/bin/nvidia-settings -a "[fan:5]/GPUTargetFanSpeed=90"

/usr/bin/nvidia-settings -a "[gpu:0]/GPUMemoryTransferRateOffset[4]=500" -a "[gpu:0]/GPUGraphicsClockOffset[4]=60"
/usr/bin/nvidia-settings -a "[gpu:1]/GPUMemoryTransferRateOffset[4]=1000" -a "[gpu:1]/GPUGraphicsClockOffset[4]=60"
#/usr/bin/nvidia-settings -a "[gpu:2]/GPUMemoryTransferRateOffset[4]=800" -a "[gpu:2]/GPUGraphicsClockOffset[4]=60"

[Lurkki]

Not sure what you mean by 'parametrizing`. Fan speeds can be set on Auto, or use a slider to set the speed in the GUI. The X Server Settings app displays the 'slowdown' temp for the device. Not sure if this is equivalent to what you call shutdown temp.

By that I mean that the fan speed can depend on the GPU temperature for example. Shutdown temperature is a different thing, for me it's 3 degrees higher than the slowdown temperature.

[RealNC]

I too wonder what is the supposed benefit of this app over the existing Nvidia X Server Settings application installed by default with the drivers. It is a GUI also and has all the capabilities of this TuxClocker application. It can set fan speeds and set the memory and core clock overclocks. You can set power limits via nvidia-smi and the command line.

Read the "Features" section on the github page.