Selecting Ultra water detail setting causes P2 state lock-in on nvidia drivers?

[boez 85]

(I intended to post this on LM’s forum but seem to be having issues logging in there).

 

Can anyone else confirm that when Ultra water detail level is selected the nvidia driver P-State drops down to P2 level - GPU-Z or Nvidia Inspector can be used to check for this.

 

On my hardware (see below) this issue exists on both my Windows 8.1u1 and Windows 10 dual boot. These were both fresh installs with no other software except Prepar3d. Zero tweaks and addons.

 

The issue is repeatable and happens either if changed when running or before starting the App after editing the config file. Dropping the setting from Ultra to any other level sees P0 restored. It seems to be independent of any other setting, tessellation level, LOD, etc. Selecting ‘Prefer Maximum Performance’ in NI has no effect either.

 

On Windows 10 the CPU usage also goes to 100% on all 4 cores although this is not the case with 8.1.

 

P-State level P2 means that the GPU is only running at around 80-90% of its potential and so is a big performance hit on top of what might be expected for clicking the slider one more position to the right. This means lower base clock speed, boost will not kick in and VRAM memory speed is limited to 3000Mhz rather than 3500Mhz. Also any GPU overclocking - which is usually setup for P0 state - will not see the benefit while in P2.

 

If you are running Ultra water may want to check this out as I have been doing so since purchasing the 980GTX and thus have not being using it to its full potential!

 

4790K @ 4.8/46

980GTX

Windows 10 - driver 352.84

Windows 8.1u1 - driver 353.06

[DylanM 1,069]

Whoa! I'll have to take a peek when I get back home...

[Penz 45]

My water setting is ultra, with all the bells and whisles enabled.

 

I cannot reproduce the issue, just checked with NI on my GTX 670, it stays in P0 state.

 

This is on Win 7 /64, driver 353.06 (latest).

[louisdecoolste 12]

Ditto with a GTX660Ti on Win 7/64 wit 353.12 (the actual latest, JP)

 

What other changes have you made that might have caused this? P3D .cfg by any chance?

[Jonathan Berthier 99]

He said he saw this on Windows 8.1 Update 1 and Windows 10 while you both have Windows 7, so that may be a hint there.

[Dave_YVR 968]

 Running GTX970 here on 353.06 in Win 7 64 and mine jumps back and forth with the water setting as well.

[Penz 45]

Ditto with a GTX660Ti on Win 7/64 wit 353.12 (the actual latest, JP)

Haha, sorry Louis!

[HighTowers 1,434]

Using drivers 347.52 on windows 7 and my P state remains at P0 the whole time  with no downgrade on the vram clk or the gpu overclock. Water is on ultra.

[DylanM 1,069]

 

 

He said he saw this on Windows 8.1 Update 1 and Windows 10 while you both have Windows 7

 

Exactly. Can anyone with Win 8.1 or 10 weigh in?

[boez 85]

Missed from my spec that it's 64 bit edition for both OS (in case that makes I difference). detail on.

 

Totally fresh install of both and no configuration file tweaks or ni tweaks as stated. I repeated this full start from blank install process several times at the weekend just to make sure and each time same result.

 

Other settings that may be relevant are full tessellation and 10m mesh, bathymetry on and terrain and cloud reflections. I did try all these on and off and same result, I.e. P2 locked with ultra selected. Weird that it looks like it's isolated to my system but thanks for checking.

[shaddyy 9]

I can confirm this happening on my system also. i was running Ultra at P2, switched to High and it switched over to P0, resulted in a huge performance increase for me too, thanks for pointing this out!

 

Running windows 8.1, latest updates and a GTX 980. 

[DylanM 1,069]

Confirmed using Nvidia Inspector that this is occurring on my 980 as well (in Win 8.1). Switching water effects to High brought the P-State to P0.

 

This is a rather huge issue (which many might not even realize they're hitting!) - have you reported it on the P3D forums Boez?  

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

Maybe this is a dumb question, but is the use of the ultra water setting causing the driver to throttle the GPU back to the P2 state? BTW, I'm running Win 8.1 with water set to ultra and I am always running at the maximum power state with a GTX 980 Ti and driver 353.12. The possibilities are that the either:

• the PCIe Link State setting under Windows Advanced Power Settings has somehow changed  from "Off" to something else.
• the nVidia driver power setting is not set at "Prefer maximum performance"
• or lastly, it could be a bug in the nVidia driver that only impacts some systems and graphics cards.

[DylanM 1,069]

Thanks Jay - GPU load, thermal, and voltage are well below their thresholds with Ultra enabled, so it shouldn't be naturally throttling back (and to confirm this is with the power setting at "prefer maximum performance").

 

I'm running the latest 353.06 WHQL drivers; I don't see the 353.12 ones you noted for download...are those out in beta?

[spirit_66 2]

 

 

I'm running the latest 353.06 WHQL drivers; I don't see the 353.12 ones you noted for download...are those out in beta?

You may look here. http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=399677

Spirit