NVidia driver 418.56 out for Linux

It seems that a lot of GPU problems revolve around specific versions of drivers. Though NVidia has their own support structure, you can often learn from information reported by others who fold.

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MeeLee
Posts: 1375
Joined: Tue Feb 19, 2019 10:16 pm

NVidia driver 418.56 out for Linux

Post by MeeLee »

Nvidia just released driver 418.56 today for Linux, and I've been playing around with it for a bit!
They're much better than the 418.48 drivers from yesterday to a few months ago!

First up, the installation worked nearly flawless from a clean install from the .run files!
Previously I had to install nvidia drivers from apt-get. This .run file installs great (at least, on a clean install; either before or after an apg-get dist-upgrade; the previous drivers only worked on my system, when dist-upgrade was done AFTER GPU driver install)!

Second, I've been looking into the power settings.
Once Coolbits is enabled, I can clearly see the newer driver is hitting closer to the GPU BOOST speed limit. (it actually surpasses the boost speed of Nvidia reference cards) on even the cheaper brands.

Coolbits is available now for all cards, and no longer does Linux give odd desktop errors. (at least not yet)
I can now overclock multiple cards.

The overclocking itself, is a bit harder to do. I can't hit those same GPU overclock numbers anymore, because the drivers seem to be pushing the cards higher by default.
in the end, I'll get the same overclock speeds, but it seems to me that there's less play (a few tens of Mhz per GPU) before the card starts throttling.

I can now run my cards at -pl (power level) 140 and get nearly the same speeds as stock!
It makes no sense to me anymore to run any of my cards above 145Watts; and an overclock, as the GPU will start throttling there (due to too high Ghz).

I could also run it at the minimum 125W setting, and the card will reach higher clock rates there as well, than with previous drivers. Even at 125Watts most cards still hit higher continuous speeds than Nvidia's reference card's boost speeds!


I do underclock my GPU VRAM memory at -2000Mhz now.
Not that it matters much, but it'll allow the GPU to run slightly higher clocks; though, when lowering the GPU speed, one can overclock the vram by ~500-1000; and ~2000-3000Mhz (depending on the card) gives about the same PPD as underclocking it and overclocking the GPU.
I might find it safer to overclock the GPU by 20-50Mhz, than to overclock the RAM by 2Ghz, to get the same results; hence why I underclock the ram nowadays.

I'm actually very satisfied with this new driver!
MeeLee
Posts: 1375
Joined: Tue Feb 19, 2019 10:16 pm

Re: NVidia driver 418.56 out for Linux

Post by MeeLee »

I've just been playing around with the vram speeds, and it's safe to overclock. it affects folding speed by up to 10%, without any additional power requirements.
it also doesn't generate any additional heat.
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