Arch Linux

vibee

Member

Registered: 2013-06-15

Posts: 38

Problem with nvidia, 1GB VRAM card (performance drop when out of VRAM)

Hi,

my specs are as follows:

Core i7, GTX 650 Ti Boost 1GB, 16GB RAM, Arch Linux x86_64, nvidia proprietary driver (331.20).

I was comparing Unigine Valley and Unigine Heaven benchmark results (both OpenGL) and recognized that Windows score was about twice as much as linux result. I then run the benchmark and watched the nvidia graphics card information site in Nvidia X Server Settings GUI.

It came out that at a certain point of the benchmarks (it's always the same scene) VRAM becomes 100% used (1024MB of 1024MB)  when performance suddenly drops about 60-70% and will not recover until I completely close and restart the benchmark. At the same time, PCIe Bandwith Utilization raises from 1-2% to over 60% (and won't recover neither). Also, xorg cpu usage increases. That is why my score is so bad with linux, as the benchmark runs at very low speed after this "crash".

Further, there are lots of dmesg entries like this:

332.094640] NVRM: GPU at 0000:01:00: GPU-ef8b5144-a87a-ca75-07cf-3c58e3bb763c
[ 332.094648] NVRM: Xid (0000:01:00): 31, Ch 00000001, engmask 00000101, intr 10000000
[ 332.205607] NVRM: Xid (0000:01:00): 31, Ch 00000001, engmask 00000111, intr 10000000
[ 333.029376] NVRM: Xid (0000:01:00): 31, Ch 00000001, engmask 00000101, intr 10000000
[ 333.060179] NVRM: Xid (0000:01:00): 13, 0001 00000000 0000a097 00001614 00000000 0000000d
[ 333.106944] NVRM: Xid (0000:01:00): 31, Ch 00000001, engmask 00000111, intr 10000000
[ 333.140734] NVRM: Xid (0000:01:00): 13, 0001 00000000 0000a097 00001614 00000000 0000000d
[ 333.154885] NVRM: Xid (0000:01:00): 31, Ch 00000001, engmask 00000101, intr 10000000
[ 333.187125] NVRM: Xid (0000:01:00): 13, 0001 00000000 0000a097 00001614 00000000 0000000d
[ 333.197998] NVRM: Xid (0000:01:00): 13, 0001 00000000 0000a097 00001614 00000000 0000000d
[ 333.226076] NVRM: Xid (0000:01:00): 31, Ch 00000001, engmask 00000101, intr 10000000
[ 333.267744] NVRM: Xid (0000:01:00): 31, Ch 00000001, engmask 00000101, intr 10000000
[ 333.287152] NVRM: Xid (0000:01:00): 13, 0001 00000000 0000a097 00001614 00000000 0000000d
[ 333.301732] NVRM: Xid (0000:01:00): 31, Ch 00000001, engmask 00000101, intr 10000000
[ 333.319120] NVRM: Xid (0000:01:00): 13, 0001 00000000 0000a097 00001614 00000000 0000000d
[ 333.347373] NVRM: Xid (0000:01:00): 31, Ch 00000001, engmask 00000101, intr 10000000
[ 333.362109] NVRM: Xid (0000:01:00): 13, 0001 00000000 0000a097 00001614 00000000 0000000d
[ 333.379526] NVRM: Xid (0000:01:00): 31, Ch 00000001, engmask 00000101, intr 10000000
[ 333.393192] NVRM: Xid (0000:01:00): 13, 0001 00000000 0000a097 00001614 00000000 0000000d
[ 333.406094] NVRM: Xid (0000:01:00): 31, Ch 00000001, engmask 00000101, intr 10000000
[ 333.416980] NVRM: Xid (0000:01:00): 13, 0001 00000000 0000a097 00001614 00000000 0000000d
[ 333.432796] NVRM: Xid (0000:01:00): 31, Ch 00000001, engmask 00000101, intr 10000000

I already filed a bug report at nvidia and found out that I am not the only user who runs into this problem. A few other users obeserved the same problem with Unigine benchmarks and L4D2 with several 3xx drivers, when VRAM becomes 100% used.

I am just wondering if it really is a bug in the proprietary driver or if it is possible that my system is misconfigured. Any idea?

Last edited by vibee (2013-12-09 17:10:34)

hamelg

Member

From: France

Registered: 2008-06-19

Posts: 128

Re: Problem with nvidia, 1GB VRAM card (performance drop when out of VRAM)

Hello,

I see this bug on me my mythtv box since the 30th November.
It happens randomly when I navigate in the mythv GL GUI or with some GL xscreensavers.
The display is half frozen and I get several Xid 13 and 31. In my Xorg.log, I have this line :
[  3050.103] (EE) NVIDIA(GPU-0): WAIT: (E, 0, 0x907d)
and the resources consumption is like :
Attribute 'GPUUtilization' (mythsat:0[gpu:0]): graphics=77, memory=75, video=0, PCIe=16

The video card is a F119 [GeForce GT 520].

I tried to switch to the nouveau driver, unfortunately it is also buggy with my hardware
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=71659

My last hope is to downgrade the nvidia driver or to wait the bug fix.

On my other desktop, powered by a G94 [GeForce 9600 GT], this bug never happens.

Last edited by hamelg (2013-12-11 19:39:29)

hamelg

Member

From: France

Registered: 2008-06-19

Posts: 128

Re: Problem with nvidia, 1GB VRAM card (performance drop when out of VRAM)

I purchased another video card. it was defective.
Xid messages reveal a hardware failure !