Can't change DPM on radeon GPU

schmidtbag · 2015-01-17 23:29:35

After using Catalyst for about 2 months and getting tired of it causing me problems, I recently just switched from catalyst to the open source radeon drivers and I noticed performance was slower than it was last time I used these drivers... a lot slower.

I installed "radeon-tray" and when I run it, it says the power method is "dpm", but the icon is stuck at M (for "mid power") regardless of what I'm doing. The GPU is blowing cold air even when playing a running-very-slow-game, so I'm sure it isn't running at full speed. Keep in mind, I own a R9 290 - these things are notorious for heat.

Anyway if I try using radeontray to change the power, it says "you don't have the permission tot write card's settings". I have also tried using (as root):
echo "dynpm" > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_method
but I'm told there is a write error.

In other words, I seem to be stuck at a certain frequency. Any ideas how to fix this?

Lone_Wolf · 2015-01-18 22:59:16

please post the output (run as root) of

cat /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_dpm_state
cat /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_dpm_force_performance_level
cat /sys/kernel/debug/dri/0/radeon_pm_info

It also may be worth a try to do :

echo high > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_dpm_force_performance_level

If your card is indeed using dpm (which is NOT the same as dynpm ), that should switch the card to high performance.

schmidtbag · 2015-01-19 00:07:37

cat /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_dpm_state
balanced

cat /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_dpm_force_performance_level
auto

cat /sys/kernel/debug/dri/0/radeon_pm_info (needed root)
uvd disabled
vce disabled
power level avg sclk: 30513 mclk: 15000

cat /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_method
dpm

I figured dpm wasn't the same thing as dyndpm. When setting the dpm force performance level to high, I got significantly better performance. But, I noticed that as soon as I did it the temperature went up without doing anything. I figure this is normal, but I would like dydpm to kick in when it's supposed to.

The thing that doesn't quite make sense is why exactly it is like this now. Before I used catalyst, performance on radeon was fine.

Last edited by schmidtbag (2015-01-19 05:12:12)

Lone_Wolf · 2015-01-19 12:51:07

Those settings match what i expected, it also indicates dpm support for your card in radeon driver is not fully functional yet.

The radeon driver sees lots of improvements in git, and it's possible latest trunk mesa has better dpm support.
The best results are gotten when you use trunk mesa and trunk llvm.

You got 3 options :

AUR mesa-git
misses a dependency (python2-mako ) and if you use it make sure you build/install llvm-svn before running it, else it will be build against stock llvm and miss functionality (maybe even crash due to to old llvm).

Lordheavy's unofficial mesa-git repo, http://pkgbuild.com/~lcarlier/

my own AUR mesa-r300-r600-radeonsi-git package.
(for llvm-svn/clang-svn you can either use AUR llvm-svn or mesa-git llvm-svn, i tend to test with both)

Last edited by Lone_Wolf (2015-01-19 12:52:08)

schmidtbag · 2015-01-19 14:10:11

The only thing that bothers me is I've only switched away from radeonsi for about 2 months, and back then it seemed that dyndpm was functioning (either that or the GPU's power state was always set to high, which is a possibility). But even if I were using dyndpm or "high" 2 months ago by default, why am I not now?

Unless there has been a change to radeonSI within the past 2 months known to cause my issue, I'm not sure switching to git is going to fix this problem. I'm not home so I can't test git right now anyway.

Lone_Wolf · 2015-01-20 11:26:57

radeonsi consists of 3 parts working together : radeon kernel module, mesa radeonsi driver (relies on llvm/clang for many things) , xf86-video-ati .

You could use pacman.log to determine which versions you were using before you switched to catalyst and downgrade them 1 by1 .

On the other hand, mesa / llvm see lots of improvements for radeonsi at a fast pace, and the issue may already have been solved.
mesa & llvm bug trackers are not exactly easy to search in with so little info about the cause of the problem, using git as test seems worth a try.

Last edited by Lone_Wolf (2015-01-20 11:27:25)

Arch Linux

#1 2015-01-17 23:29:35

Can't change DPM on radeon GPU

#2 2015-01-18 22:59:16

Re: Can't change DPM on radeon GPU

#3 2015-01-19 00:07:37

Re: Can't change DPM on radeon GPU

#4 2015-01-19 12:51:07

Re: Can't change DPM on radeon GPU

#5 2015-01-19 14:10:11

Re: Can't change DPM on radeon GPU

#6 2015-01-20 11:26:57

Re: Can't change DPM on radeon GPU

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