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Rug Olgebort
Asked: 2021-02-26 06:04:37 +0800 CST

Alternative to nvidia-settings GpuPowerMizerMode in Ubuntu?

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We have a Ubuntu 20.04 server with Nvidia GPUs and want to change the Power Mode / GpuPowerMizerMode to Prefer Maximum Performance.

One way to do this is

nvidia-settings -a "[gpu:0]/GpuPowerMizerMode=1"

However, that would require an X session with access to the respective GPU; editing /etc/X11/xorg.conf would not work for the same reason.

Is there another way to read and set the GpuPowerMizerMode of a Nvidia GPU in Ubuntu?

ubuntu configuration nvidia power-mgmt

2 Answers

  1. According to this comment, you need to have a dummy X server running. Here is how I've been able to accomplish this in Ubuntu 20.04.

    1. Install the necessary packages:
    sudo apt install xorg
    1. Run nvidia-xconfig:
    sudo nvidia-xconfig -a
    1. Edit /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config and add:
    allowed_users=anybody
    1. Start the X server:
    startx
    1. In another terminal, run nvidia-settings:
    DISPLAY=:0.0 nvidia-settings -a "[gpu:0]/GpuPowerMizerMode=1"

    It happily replies with:

    Attribute 'GPUPowerMizerMode' (orion:0[gpu:0]) assigned value 1.

    Now the Performance State of my GPU stays at P2.

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  2. this is how i solved it on my machines (headless servers, using SSH);

    make sure tmux is installed, or use SCREEN

    tmux new-session -s [your new session's name here]

sudo ls 

sudo X :0 &

export DISPLAY=:0

nvidia-settings -a [whatever commands you want to use]
nvidia-settings -a [whatever commands you want to use]
nvidia-settings -a [whatever commands you want to use]
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