Low PPD 331.38 [Arch 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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Kurtis200200
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Joined: Sat Jul 06, 2013 4:37 pm

Low PPD 331.38 [Arch Linux]

Post by Kurtis200200 »

Using Arch Linux and have nvidia 331.38 installed via Arch's 'pacman' package manager for two EVGA GTX 660s. Its ppd is considerably less than when I ran the GTX 660s on a windows client.

Does the nvidia-304 package return the GTX-600 series to a decent PPD value?

I'm seeing that nvidia-319 may have been the pinnacle for Linux boxes, but I'm having difficulty locating that package in the Arch User Repository, and I'm too noob to want to install something outside of 'pacman.'
ChristianVirtual
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Re: Low PPD 331.38 [Arch Linux]

Post by ChristianVirtual »

The drivers 331.x works best for GT110 cards like 780 and Titan; on the older card with GT104 the performance is around 50%.

I took out my 660TI from my main rig and put it into a test bench with 319.x driver. The two 780 get driven by 331.20

So yes, downgrade driver will help you
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Kurtis200200
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Re: Low PPD 331.38 [Arch Linux]

Post by Kurtis200200 »

I'll give it an hour or so, but 20 minutes into running foldingathome with 'nvidia-304xx' installed isn't indicating any estimated PPD bump (was 19,000ppd per GTX660 per 8900 work unit, unchanged).
Kurtis200200
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Re: Low PPD 331.38 [Arch Linux]

Post by Kurtis200200 »

Edit: Nothing changed between my above post and this one except time; Now PPD estimate noticeably larger (~42,000ppd per GTX 660 per 8900 work unit).
For Arch Linux users with a GeForce GTX 600-series card faced with the choice between 304xx and 331.38, go for the 304xx.
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Re: Low PPD 331.38 [Arch Linux]

Post by 7im »

BTW, there is no difference between Linux or Arch Linux, or even Windows when it comes to this driver issue. They are all the same at this point. 327.xx or less for Non GK110s. GK110s can run the latest version.

As for GMxxx cards, they can only run the latest version, so no choice there.

There was a thread on driver versions and GFxxx performance, but I don't think it matters. You can always run 327.xx to be safe.
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Kurtis200200
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Joined: Sat Jul 06, 2013 4:37 pm

Re: Low PPD 331.38 [Arch Linux]

Post by Kurtis200200 »

For any other Arch Linux users out there wondering how to roll back to 304xx, here was the process I followed:

Code: Select all

sudo systemctl disable foldingathome.service && sudo systemctl stop foldingathome.service
sudo pacman -Rns nvidia
## I believe this also removed nvidia-utils as a dependency
sudo pacman -Rdds nvidia-libgl
## note that I never reinstalled this package, and actually neither my tty nor F@H seemed
## to care.  You might care though in your personal use of the graphics card, and I admit I
## couldn't figure out how to get a 304xx-compatible version of this package installed.  Also,
## I used -Rdds because I have cairo installed and it complained with -Rns
sudo pacman -Rns opencl-nvidia
sudo pacman -S nvidia-304xx nvidia-304xx-utils opencl-nvidia-304xx
sudo reboot
sudo systemctl start foldingathome.service
(Of course the above is my edited installation process. The full text is below and belies actually how confusing the process was, hence why I wanted to share an edited, simpler way):

Code: Select all

sudo systemctl disable foldingathome.service && sudo systemctl stop foldingathome.service && sudo systemctl disable boinc.service && sudo pacman -Rns nvidia
sudo pacman -Rdds nvidia
sudo pacman -Rns nvidia
sudo pacman -S nvidia-304xx
sudo pacman -Rdds nvidia-libgl
sudo pacman -S nvidia-304xx
sudo pacman -Rns opencl-nvidia
sudo pacman -S opencl-nvidia-304xx
sudo pacman -S nvidia-libgl-304xx
yaourt nvidia-libgl
pacman -Qs nvid
sudo pacman -Rns nvidia-304xx
sudo pacman -Rns nvidia-304xx-utils
sudo pacman -Qs libgl
sudo pacman -Qs nvidia
sudo pacman -Rns opencl-nvidia-304xx
sudo pacman -Rns nvidia-304xx-utils
sudo pacman -Rdds nvidia-304xx-utils
sudo pacman -Qs nvidia
yaourt nvidia-libgl
pacman -Qs nvid
sudo pacman -S nvidia-304xx
yaourt opencl-nvidia
sudo pacman -Rns nvidia-utils nvidia-libgl
sudo pacman -S nvidia-304xx
pacman -Qs nvid
sudo pacman -Rns nvidia-319-utils nvidia-319-libgl
sudo pacman -Rns nvidia-319-utils
sudo pacman -Rdds nvidia-319-utils
sudo pacman -Rdds nvidia-319-libgl
sudo pacman -S nvidia-304xx nvidia-304xx-utils
sudo pacman -S opencl-nvidia-304xx
pacman -Qs
pacman -Qs nvid
sudo reboot
sudo systemctl start foldingathome.service
Kurtis200200
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nvidia-304xx Still Working Great

Post by Kurtis200200 »

Since it seems that people are frequently looking for a good driver to roll back to, I thought I'd share the following data point:

For 64-bit Arch Linux, the package 'nvidia-304xx' and version '304.121-2' (and its dependencies also of the same version) are folding quite well on my two EVGA GTX660SCs (~>100k PPD combined)
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