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#1 2013-03-21 05:32:09

iamgabo
Member
From: Argentina
Registered: 2011-10-12
Posts: 15

GPU and CUDA lags machine

Hi folks! I'm stuck in making CUDA to work the way i think it must. I plan to use my box mostly for rendering and work with Blender. I brand a CUDA supported graphic card:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK107 [GeForce GT 640] (rev a1)

Now, the thing is, when i'm rendering entirely with the GPU, via Blender Cycles, i notice the rendering speed up almost 20x fast, but my machine starts to lag and freeze, instead of when i'm rendering with all my CPU cores. I've an AMD Fx 6100 with 8 Gb of RAM. I think it must be the other way around, my machine works very nice even when i'm rendering with all the CPU load, and on the other hand with GPU CUDA rendering that it lags my pc.

CUDA version:

community/cuda 5.0.35-3 [installed]
    NVIDIA's GPU programming toolkit

Blender:

Blender 2.66 (sub 1)
	build date: 2013-03-09
	build time: 01:22:40
	build revision: unknown
	build platform: Linux
	build type: Release
	build c flags:  -Wall -Wcast-align -Werror=declaration-after-statement -Werror=implicit-function-declaration -Werror=return-type -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -Wno-char-subscripts -Wno-unknown-pragmas -Wpointer-arith -Wunused-parameter -Wwrite-strings -Wlogical-op -Wundef -Winit-self -Wnonnull -Wmissing-include-dirs -Wno-div-by-zero -Wuninitialized -Wno-error=unused-but-set-variable -march=x86-64 -mtune=generic -O2 -pipe -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2  -fopenmp  -msse2  -msse -pipe -fPIC -funsigned-char -fno-strict-aliasing
	build c++ flags:  -Wall -Wno-invalid-offsetof -Wno-sign-compare -Wlogical-op -Winit-self -Wmissing-include-dirs -Wno-div-by-zero -Wuninitialized -Wundef -Wmissing-declarations -march=x86-64 -mtune=generic -O2 -pipe -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2  -D__STDC_CONSTANT_MACROS -fopenmp  -msse2  -msse -pipe -fPIC -funsigned-char -fno-strict-aliasing
	build link flags:  -Wl,--version-script=/build/src/blender-2.66a/source/creator/blender.map -pthread
	build system: CMake

Actually using the Con Koliva's kernel and last NVIDIA driver

repo-ck/nvidia-ck-bulldozer 313.26-1 (ck-bulldozer) [installed]
    NVIDIA drivers for linux-ck. AMD Bulldozer Family 15h microarchitecture optimized.

I'm thinking of downgrading the driver to 304xx, or i'm wrong and it's normal to have that lag?

Thanks in advance!

iamgabo


Parez-vous, dansez, riez, - Je ne pourrai jamais envoyer l'Amour par la fenêtre.

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#2 2013-03-21 06:28:21

Max-P
Member
Registered: 2011-06-11
Posts: 164

Re: GPU and CUDA lags machine

I'm not an expert in graphic cards at all, but since you are using 100% of your GPU with Blender rendering, your X environment probably have a hard time getting enough GPU time to render your desktop smoothly.

Have you tried lowering the blender's process priority, just in case the nvidia driver would respect that?

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#3 2013-03-21 06:32:19

iamgabo
Member
From: Argentina
Registered: 2011-10-12
Posts: 15

Re: GPU and CUDA lags machine

I was wondering in doing that with cgroups. Let me introduce myself with that i'll share the results.


Parez-vous, dansez, riez, - Je ne pourrai jamais envoyer l'Amour par la fenêtre.

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#4 2013-03-21 09:45:41

mich41
Member
Registered: 2012-06-22
Posts: 796

Re: GPU and CUDA lags machine

Are you using the same GPU for display and for CUDA? If so, ask on NV forums whether GUI freezing is expected in such situation - I think it may be.

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#5 2013-03-21 19:45:21

iamgabo
Member
From: Argentina
Registered: 2011-10-12
Posts: 15

Re: GPU and CUDA lags machine

Yes, that freezing is expected, but inside Blender. I'll put the same thread under the nvidia CUDA developers section. Thanks!


Parez-vous, dansez, riez, - Je ne pourrai jamais envoyer l'Amour par la fenêtre.

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#6 2013-03-21 20:22:16

mich41
Member
Registered: 2012-06-22
Posts: 796

Re: GPU and CUDA lags machine

iamgabo wrote:

Yes, that freezing is expected, but inside Blender.

Blender freezing when it waits for completion of CUDA kernels is one thing. But I remember that few years ago launching any CUDA kernels completely froze the whole display. It would get redrawn only between kernels, never during kernel execution. I don't know if this has been improved with newer cards and drivers.

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#7 2014-07-11 14:23:15

cars10
Member
Registered: 2014-03-11
Posts: 27

Re: GPU and CUDA lags machine

I have the same problem, is there a fix or workaround for this?
Really annoying that i can't work while rendering.

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#8 2014-07-11 14:59:41

Kaan
Member
Registered: 2009-02-10
Posts: 32

Re: GPU and CUDA lags machine

I remember this happening on windows too.

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