WattmanGTK Is A Simple GUI For Radeon Power/Performance Knobs On Linux

[phoronix]

Phoronix: WattmanGTK Is A Simple GUI For Radeon Power/Performance Knobs On Linux

Unfortunately nothing has panned out from previous remarks made by AMD about potentially open-sourcing their Qt-based Radeon Settings control panel used on Windows so that it could be ported to Linux. The latest we've heard from AMD is that they aren't officially pursuing a GUI control panel for their Linux graphics driver but leaving it up to the different desktop environments to implement their own driver user-interfaces. One of the new community solutions in the absence of an official Radeon GUI for Linux is WattmanGTK...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=WattmanGTK-Linux-AMDGPU

[ms178]

AMD still has some work to do with Wattman, a suspend/resume resets custom Wattman profiles on Windows, a reboot restores the profile then. That's inconvenient.

[Pahanilmanlintu]

Some graphics card manufacturers seem to deliver overclocking / power saving features as wattman profiles (like is the case with mine). Wonder if wattmangtk can apply those?

[aufkrawall]

AMD still has some work to do with Wattman, a suspend/resume resets custom Wattman profiles on Windows, a reboot restores the profile then. That's inconvenient.

Can't confirm this with suspend to RAM on Windows.

[TemplarGR]

On my Tonga i have a serious issue with fan control, it works in a binary fashion, my fan either idles around 150-190RPM or goes 100% at around 3500RPM, no in-between. Tried everything using pwm commands, and it is just broken. Filed a bug but it would have been nice if i had a way to modify fan RPM directly. I know this function is supposed to arrive with kernel 4.21 but until then my gpu can be very annoying because it overheats and then sounds like a vacuum cleaner. I modified my fan to reach that 100% at lower temperatures than the auto dpm does, in order to save my card long-term from high temperatures, but i think we need better power management and better "power performance knobs" before we get concerned with GUIs...

[aufkrawall]

but i think we need better power management and better "power performance knobs" before we get concerned with GUIs...

The "Wattman" UI is not done by AMD, so where is the problem? They keep on focusing on the core tech.
Dynamic clocking btw. works way better than on Windows with my RX 560 ("special" cases like multi display or 4k not counted/tested).

[TemplarGR]

The "Wattman" UI is not done by AMD, so where is the problem? They keep on focusing on the core tech.
Dynamic clocking btw. works way better than on Windows with my RX 560 ("special" cases like multi display or 4k not counted/tested).

Well the amdgpu linux team seems focused mostly on Polaris and Vega cards, so it makes sense. My Tonga power management and fan control is way, way better on Windows, there is no comparison...

[Solid State Brain]

As for fan control, things can still be improved on newer cards. I have an Sapphire Nitro RX480 and unlike on Windows the fans don't automatically stop at low temperatures/during low load conditions. It would be great if this was officially implemented in the drivers on Linux instead of having to rely on user scripts (which might not necessarily work or update fan speed quickly enough for example during high CPU/GPU load).

[aufkrawall]

Totally agreed on zero fan situation, it is often mentioned by several users.
Personally however, I don't like zero fan anyway and prefer silent fans at few rpm. The amdgpu-fancontrol script by grmat perfectly suits my needs (Almost like somebody did me a favor writing it. ).

[perpetually high]

Yup the fan is my issue right now also. On my MSI GAMING X RX 480 8GB, If you set it to auto, it hangs out at a ridiculous 1600RPM (48% or so). Instead I manually set it to a fixed 20% (975RPM) when not gaming and then set it to "auto" via a script before I start a game as I'll have my headphones on anyway.

rocm-smi --resetprofile
rocm-smi --resetclocks
rocm-smi --resetfans
rocm-smi --setperflevel high

That sets it to 1303/2000, high perf profile, and auto fan. Best I can do for now. rocm-smi has been a great tool for me so far. Unfortunately the sclk and mclk overclock do not work right now (but they fixed it four days ago) so I'm just waiting for the new ROCm release now so I can use it, as I've already added the kernel patch.

Lastly, there's a GitHub issue by someone else, but that feature flag (amdgpu.ppfeaturemask=0xffffffff) gives me artifacts and glitches. Not really sure why some people see this bug and others don't.