Question What exactly controls how much of the GPU is used for certain programs?

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atticus_maytrap

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Nov 12, 2018
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Hi there, note: i have posted about this before, but im looking for a more fine tuned answer, please bear with me here

my question is in regard to a curious problem ive been having for the better part of a year now with my 1080Ti and my work programs - namely Autodesk products, Revit, Autocad, Naviswork etc (but not limited to).

Basically, in about July / August of last year i noticed in Afterburner that the GPU clock was ramping up to load levels (1900Mhz +) when using the above programs, and the usage spiking up past 60-70%. It never used to do this, in the past for these programs the clock never exceeded base levels and the usage never got past 20-25% with normal usage - navigating around view windows etc.

It does even need to be a complicated model, i can open a completely empty file with no geometry modelled, and just running the mouse through the window will cause the GPU to spike upwards.

This phenomenon also occurs in other non-3D programs. If i detach the Afterburner graphs and then run the mouse over them, this also causes the GPU clock to spike upwards.
Similar thing happens with Adobe products, Premier Pro and Indesigen.

However, in other more intense 3D programs like 3D Studio Max - also an Autodesk product - the clock behaves exactly as expected, never exceeds base and usage never gets past 20%.

At first i was sure this was driver related, as rolling back to an older driver (466.47) got rid of the problem.

I carried on with this for a few months, everything in order, even rolled up a driver a few times towards the end of last year, no change.

I then encountered an issue with some games, massive performance drop across the board. I DDU'd the driver out and rolled back, and BAM, the upclocking bug with regard to my work programs was back. I tired rolling back to my previous "safe" driver 466.47, but this didnt change anything.

I carried on with the bug a for a time, it wasnt causing any dangerous temp changes and everything still worked as it should, and after a time it seemingly went away by itself without any updates or input from me.

It was a 3 week or more period with the clock behaving exactly as it should. Now, it has resurfaced again - and the only thing i did before it came back was open the Geforce Experience App on my machine - not to update, just to see the optmisation of some games.

Up until last week it was more or less a coin toss everytime i turned the machine on - will the the upclocking bug be there or not? Sometimes it would be gone, but would then come back after waking the machine up from sleep mode.

For the past week and a half it has been permanently there though, and nothing seems to be change it.

My question is simple: What actually determines the GPU clock and usage with regard to certain programs?
Is it purely based on the driver, or is there a windows element at play here?


Windows 10 21H1
1080Ti
19-9900k
32GB RAM
850W Be Queit! Gold Straight power PSU
Z390 Rog Strix
 

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
goes out on a limb... having a 3rd party drivers updater isn't a good idea. they can install the wrong drivers and cause all sorts of problems.
Not sure if this could be cause.

I could look at your drivers but it might not show me anything useful
Can you download and run Driverview - http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/driverview.html

All it does is looks at drivers installed; it won't install any (this is intentional as 3rd party driver updaters often get it wrong)

When you run it, go into view tab and set it to hide all Microsoft drivers, will make list shorter.

take a screenshot from (and including)Driver name to (and including)Creation date.

upload it to an image sharing website (like imgur) and show link in this thread


I could assume your WS at work is slightly more powerful than one at home so it might account for some of usage.
 
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atticus_maytrap

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Nov 12, 2018
74
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4,545
goes out on a limb... having a 3rd party drivers updater isn't a good idea. they can install the wrong drivers and cause all sorts of problems.
Not sure if this could be cause.

I could look at your drivers but it might not show me anything useful
Can you download and run Driverview - http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/driverview.html

All it does is looks at drivers installed; it won't install any (this is intentional as 3rd party driver updaters often get it wrong)

When you run it, go into view tab and set it to hide all Microsoft drivers, will make list shorter.

take a screenshot from (and including)Driver name to (and including)Creation date.

upload it to an image sharing website (like imgur) and show link in this thread


I could assume your WS at work is slightly more powerful than one at home so it might account for some of usage.
i have only ever used eithe Geforce Experience to install Nvidia drivers - or in the case of DDUing out drivers to roll back, installed drivers downloaded driectly from Nvidia

ill give that a shot when im next in front of the home machine.
It certainly does feel like a driver issue, when the bug popped up again after christmas i tried installing Studio drivers and the low and behold, the problem went away. I worked for a few hours, everything running smoothly and without issue, put the machine into sleep mode to go for a walk with my daughter, came back to the machine and BAM, there it was again - and again, only in response to certain programs, not a global / constant upclocking issue.

office machine is an i7-7700k with a 1080, home machine is an i9-9900k with a 1080Ti - though the home machine does have 3 additional hard drives and a rather large CPU fan sucking away at the PSU while the office machine does not
 

atticus_maytrap

Reputable
Nov 12, 2018
74
3
4,545
goes out on a limb... having a 3rd party drivers updater isn't a good idea. they can install the wrong drivers and cause all sorts of problems.
Not sure if this could be cause.

I could look at your drivers but it might not show me anything useful
Can you download and run Driverview - http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/driverview.html

All it does is looks at drivers installed; it won't install any (this is intentional as 3rd party driver updaters often get it wrong)

When you run it, go into view tab and set it to hide all Microsoft drivers, will make list shorter.

take a screenshot from (and including)Driver name to (and including)Creation date.

upload it to an image sharing website (like imgur) and show link in this thread


I could assume your WS at work is slightly more powerful than one at home so it might account for some of usage.


hey man, ive no had a chance to take a screenshot with Driverview just yet but i will get onto it

i was just thinking over the weekend, this upclocking issue only started after i first used the program DDU early last year when i was having some system freezes and needed to roll back a driver

does DDU do anything untoward with regard to the windows OS?

one other thing, when this strange bug is present and i start seeing excessive GPU usage with regard to my work programs, the Afterburner graphs also show the FB usage mirroring the excessive GPU usage near perfectly.
However when im gaming and the GPU is working at an expected and consistent 98%+, the FB usage is down around at about a 5th of this, 20-30%

Could this mean anything?
 

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
DDU just removes display drivers, whether they be from Nvidia, Intel or AMD. It shouldn't do any damage to OS, perhaps only thing it touches in windows is registry entries.

FB Usage? I am guessing its not Facebook :)

Frame buffer?
FB usage is the frame buffer usage. Put simply, this is the percentage of the GPU memory which is being used. It's not really anything to worry about unless you are running very close to 100%, at which point your GPU starts to have memory bottlenecks.
https://superuser.com/questions/523354/what-is-fb-and-vid-usage-in-asus-gpu-tweak

it makes sense it matches GPU usage as it is GPU usage. its the memory on the GPU (possibly the shared amount, I am not sure). So whatever is cause is using VRAM

games clearly don't use VRAM the same way.
 
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atticus_maytrap

Reputable
Nov 12, 2018
74
3
4,545
DDU just removes display drivers, whether they be from Nvidia, Intel or AMD. It shouldn't do any damage to OS, perhaps only thing it touches in windows is registry entries.

FB Usage? I am guessing its not Facebook :)

Frame buffer?

https://superuser.com/questions/523354/what-is-fb-and-vid-usage-in-asus-gpu-tweak

it makes sense it matches GPU usage as it is GPU usage. its the memory on the GPU (possibly the shared amount, I am not sure). So whatever is cause is using VRAM

games clearly don't use VRAM the same way.

HA, yeh sorry about that, should have specified, Frame Buffer
 

atticus_maytrap

Reputable
Nov 12, 2018
74
3
4,545
DDU just removes display drivers, whether they be from Nvidia, Intel or AMD. It shouldn't do any damage to OS, perhaps only thing it touches in windows is registry entries.

FB Usage? I am guessing its not Facebook :)

Frame buffer?

https://superuser.com/questions/523354/what-is-fb-and-vid-usage-in-asus-gpu-tweak

it makes sense it matches GPU usage as it is GPU usage. its the memory on the GPU (possibly the shared amount, I am not sure). So whatever is cause is using VRAM

games clearly don't use VRAM the same way.
so i finally managed to get back in front of the machine and the GPU usage has now decided to work exactly as expected with regard to the mentioned programs.

Literally have not changed a thing, the last thing i did with it was work for 2 hours and then play about 40 minutes of AC Origins last tuesday evening.
Using Revit right now and the usage is sitting in the 20-30% range as expected, everything working smoothly and without issue.

Strangest. Damn. Thing.........