Bug effecting all Nvidia GPUs - Nvidia won't respond - we need your help!

[xcasxcursex]

i own the whole Ampere Lineup except of the new TI Cards and i have Zero Problems.

If you try the process in the link in the OP you'll be able to see it.

 

[AusWolf]

To understand the OP correctly... HWinfo polls the GPU at certain intervals, causing a microscopic frametime spike, and it is nvidia's fault?

 

[xcasxcursex]

To understand the OP correctly... HWinfo polls the GPU at certain intervals, causing a microscopic frametime spike, and it is nvidia's fault?

Close. When various apps poll the GPU at all, via the nvidia tools provided for that purpose, it causes a rather significant pause of the CPU (5-10ms on a very fast current model CPU), which can be used to cause a frametime spike to visualise the pause, and it's not nvidia's intention, which is what makes it a bug, and only they can fix it. But they won't, unless you put enough pressure on them.

 

[AusWolf]

Close. When various apps poll the GPU at all, it causes a rather significant pause of the CPU (5-10ms on a very fast current model CPU), which can be used to cause a frametime spike to visualise the pause, and it's not nvidia's intention, which is what makes it a bug, and only they can fix it.

1. I haven't noticed it.
2. How is nvidia connected? Have you tested this on AMD hardware?

 

[xcasxcursex]

1. I haven't noticed it.
2. How is nvidia connected? Have you tested this on AMD hardware?

1) I would expect that almost nobody if anybody else, has. It is very difficult to see, because your system is especially designed to hide these kinds of problems (details earlier in the thread if you want) But if you follow the instructions I provided, you will be able to have the computer see it for you, and put it on a graph which you will be able to see very easily (provided of course that your computer can do it, most high-end rigs will, it gets harder to replicate as processing power drops because it ends up 'hidden' behind the higher frametimes)
2) It occurs during a function provided by the nvidia driver (sorry, I edited that into my reply earlier, as I realised it was another small but critical detail missing). I have not tested any AMD hardware and I don't expect it should display any issue but you're welcome to try it.

 

[the54thvoid]

To the OP, why spend resources on an insignificant problem that nobody experiences without actually trying to achieve? Serious question, imperfections exist but if they don't affect real world performance, why make a fuss?

 

[xcasxcursex]

To the OP, why spend resources on an insignificant problem that nobody experiences without actually trying to achieve? Serious question, imperfections exist but if they don't affect real world performance, why make a fuss?

Serious question gets a serious answer. Should this seem too long for you taste I'll TL;DR at the bottom for you.

I understand it may appear an insignificant problem, I mean it's a tiny frametime spike right? What's the big deal? Consider what I've explained above, this is not a GPU problem. This is the driver freezing the CPU up. it's not just effecting graphics. Graphics is just an easy way to see that the problem is occurring. The problem that's occurring, which causes that spike you see, is the system preventing any work being done. Consider that in the above images my frametimes are 2ms and the spikes are 8 that means it's frozen up and skipped three whole frames. And that's just the consequences upon the graphics pipeline. I don't know if it's just interfering with that.

It's important you understand that the real issue here isn't the frametime spike, as significant as it may be. That's just a nice easy picture we all can understand that shows that the system isn't behaving like it should. That's the thing that engineers need from you when you give them a bug, they need to reproduce it. They need to make it happen, so they can investigate it and fix it. This is just a nice easy way to make it happen, visibly. It always goes on when monitoring, this graph just shines a light on it. It's like putting dye on microscope slides. We're creating a contrast (a really low frametime only maintainable if the CPU doesn't crap itself) so that we can see when the opposite is present (like the CPU crapping itself and the frametimes going bonkers). It's not about the graph or the spike, it's about seeing that the CPU just went bonkers.

Driver programmers go to some lengths to avoid stuff like this precisely because it seems innocuous and is easily missed, so sits there like a gremlin waiting to give you a bad day. No dev is going to look at this and go bah that's nothing. But please, don't take my word for it. Have nvidia engineers look at it. Please! (Just, y'know, ones who work on this kinda stuff and know what they're looking at, this time, would be good!)

TL;DR: It's not quite the thing you think it is.

 

[GerKNG]

so i did exactly what you wanted (monitoring, heaven 900p low...)

there is not a single spike.

and i tested a 3090 Gaming X Trio, 3080 FTW3 Ultra, 3080 TUF OC and a 3060 xc

 

[xcasxcursex]

so i did exactly what you wanted (monitoring, heaven 900p low...)
there is not a single spike.

and i tested a 3090 Gaming X Trio, 3080 FTW3 Ultra, 3080 TUF OC and a 3060 xc

Thanks for testing it. So this raises the question: why all these others and not you? Can you show the test results please? Do you do anything interesting with your windows installation or hardware that might make you immune?

 

[GerKNG]

Thanks for testing it. So this raises the question: why all these others and not you? Can you show the test results please? Do you do anything interesting with your windows installation or hardware that might make you immune?

i have a blank windows 10 21H1 installation.
Opened HWInfo with full Monitoring of everything, started MSI Afterburner (latest version) and ran heaven (two "rounds" each)
none of my cards had these issues.

i did not made any screenshots. but i can promise that i actually tested it with almost all of my cards.
PS:
the only thing that might be worth mentioning is that i did not used any kind of Resizeable BAR.

 

[xcasxcursex]

i have a blank windows 10 21H1 installation.
Opened HWInfo with full Monitoring of everything, started MSI Afterburner (latest version) and ran heaven (two "rounds" each)
none of my cards had these issues.

i did not made any screenshots. but i can promise that i actually tested it with almost all of my cards.
PS:
the only thing that might be worth mentioning is that i did not used any kind of Resizeable BAR.

Please don't think that I doubt you did it. that's not why I asked. No, I've been asking people to spend a couple minutes on this and instead I've mostly had months of argument. I really appreciate that you tried it.

The reason is that you're the first of many machines tested, to not have a problem. I wouldn't mind knowing what makes it so special. Seeing your test results instantly tells me a lot. I've just disabled rebar and no luck, damn By the way if you're tinkering with it, you won't need to run two rounds of heaven. It'll do it instantly as soon as the app starts and stop instantly when you exit it or disable monitoring.

I don't know if you remember the power monitoring bug from pascal? It will behave like that. Exactly like that.

 

[looniam]

Please don't think that I doubt you did it. that's not why I asked. No, I've been asking people to spend a couple minutes on this and instead I've mostly had months of argument. I really appreciate that you tried it.

The reason is that you're the first of many machines tested, to not have a problem. I wouldn't mind knowing what makes it so special. Seeing your test results instantly tells me a lot. I've just disabled rebar and no luck, damn By the way if you're tinkering with it, you won't need to run two rounds of heaven. It'll do it instantly as soon as the app starts and stop instantly when you exit it or disable monitoring.

I don't know if you remember the power monitoring bug from pascal? It will behave like that. Exactly like that.

i've lurked because i sorta really don't care, no offence, i don't game enough to have an issue. but i did suspect that to thoroughly investigate the issue; using clean installs would provide more valid data then those that have been using window update for years. seen folks have issues w/drivers for awhile but then a clean install solves the issue.

and depending on your sample size, a too small of one, say a dozen or so; well i wouldn't be surprised if none of them did a clean install in the last few years.

i highly recommend that YOU test it.

 

[lexluthermiester]

It's probably waiting for some kind of lock, not uncommon, especially if the I2C bus is involved. Only NVIDIA can fix it, maybe they already have the fix ready and are just waiting for verification, or the right driver release window. Or they are too busy with higher priority issues

Exactly. None of the systems in my home have encountered the problem described in the OP and all but one have NVidia GPU's. This likely isn't a high priority problem because so few people are seeing it.

 

[xcasxcursex]

Exactly. None of the systems in my home have encountered the problem described in the OP and all but one have NVidia GPU's. This likely isn't a high priority problem because so few people are seeing it.

I would be completely satisfied with a response from nvidia that it is low priority but they're on it. But that's not what it is. They're not on it. They refuse to even look at it. Now they don't even respond.

i've lurked because i sorta really don't care, no offence, i don't game enough to have an issue. but i did suspect that to thoroughly investigate the issue; using clean installs would provide more valid data then those that have been using window update for years. seen folks have issues w/drivers for awhile but then a clean install solves the issue.

and depending on your sample size, a too small of one, say a dozen or so; well i wouldn't be surprised if none of them did a clean install in the last few years.

i highly recommend that YOU test it.

I found it on my PC because it was screwing with gaming. Once I pinned it down I tried to isolate it and that ended up testing my old PC, and another low-end gaming rig in this house. Once I saw it on all those, I tried the fresh install. i also tried the fresh install again when 21h1 released in case the new version helped. Since then I've asked most of my tech-savvy gamer friends and they've all seen it. I stopped at 20. 100% of a sample size of 20 (not counting testing the same hardware with fresh software) is not too small. This is consistent behaviour. So consistent, that I can whip up one of these graphs any old time (and so can others) by following the very specific procedure I developed during the months that I have been testing it.
So TLDR Yeh youre right I did that already

As I've explained above, this isn't a gaming issue. Your CPU's performance is degraded if you're monitoring the GPU, even if you can't see it (you should not be able to under normal circumstances) and even if you're not even using the GPU for graphics beyond the desktop. Don't get me wrong I don't mind that you don't care (I far prefer your honesty to the multitudes who would rather argue for hours than test it for 2 minutes!!) but if your reason for not caring is that you don't game so you're not impacted, then maybe you might have misundestood.

 

[lexluthermiester]

They're not on it.

You don't and can't know that. Sorry man, that's just not how things work. The driver coding/debugging team does NOT communicate with the general public. You've been interacting with first tier tech-support.

They refuse to even look at it.

Again, you don't and can't know that.

Now they don't even respond.

That might be because it's not an earth-shattering problem. It might also be because they've looked at the problem and determined that is not a problem most people will encounter. We're not talking about a game/system crashing bug/glitch. We're talking about a minor annoyance that few are experiencing.

I've noticed that you did not mention what driver version you're using. It also seems that you have skipped a very simple troubleshooting step, trying different/older driver versions. Please do that. See if you still have the problem. The problem you're experiencing could be a specific driver glitch. Going back to a previous driver might easily solve your problem. Or you could you could just live with it and wait for the next driver update cycle, which will not take long...

 

[xcasxcursex]

You don't and can't know that. Sorry man, that's just not how things work. The driver coding/debugging team does NOT communicate with the general public. You've been interacting with first tier tech-support.

Again, you don't and can't know that.

That might be because it's not an earth-shattering problem. It might also be because they've looked at the problem and determined that is not a problem most people will encounter. We're not talking about a game/system crashing bug/glitch. We're talking about a minor annoyance that few are experiencing.

I've noticed that you did not mention what driver version you're using. It also seems that you have skipped a very simple troubleshooting step, trying different/older driver versions. Please do that. See if you still have the problem. The problem you're experiencing could be a specific driver glitch. Going back to a previous driver might easily solve your problem. Or you could you could just live with it and wait for the next driver update cycle, which will not take long...

I do and can know that and so can you. Read the quote where he said so directly. It's in this thread. There is much much more but you'll get the idea. He's just feeding me that tier 1 helpdesk cookie cutter because he doesn't understand what's in front of him. Honestly I don't blame him for not understanding it, but he is also being a complete rude **** who's intentionally making it difficult because, as a result of his lack of skill in this area, he, like so many others who lack those skills, doesn't understand what's in front of him and genuinely thinks it isn't even an issue.

We are not talking about a minor annoyance or something few are experiencing. I explained this in detail above.

I don't know why you have assumed that in all these months I never tried changing drivers. It is possible that I need to go back to a driver older than I have handy. Of course, nvidia could take care of this. I usually remove the installer from my drive after a while and a few newer versions seem to work well.

I think perhaps it would help if you read the thread again because you seem to have missed a few important parts of it.

 

[rtwjunkie]

We are not talking about a minor annoyance or something few are experiencing. I explained this in detail above.

Yes, it really is a minor issue that few experience or know about (because so few experience it), and thus few even care.

 

[ShiBDiB]

So from everything I've read in this shitshow of a thread.. yes there's a bug.. yes it's extremely minor to the very small amount of people who could even be effected by it.

As you said, you contacted NVIDIA. They have a ticket documenting the issue and as you also said it's not a priority for them.. Probably because anyone looking at all the data you've provided can see it's an extremely minor issue that very few people even notice.

I don't see you getting many people backing your crusade on this. But if you want to try, you'd be much better off on their official social media (twitter/etc..) and the nvidia reddit.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I do and can know that and so can you.

Rubbish...

Read the quote where he said so directly. It's in this thread.

Who? Are you saying someone from NVidia is in this thread?

So from everything I've read in this shitshow of a thread..

That about sums it up..

I don't see you getting many people backing your crusade on this. But if you want to try, you'd be much better off on their official social media (twitter/etc..) and the nvidia reddit.

This. Since none of US here at TPU are seeing this problem or have replicated same, it might be best to either follow the advice above or let it rest..

 

[xcasxcursex]

This is getting ridiculous. Read the thread, then post in it, try it in that order. I'm not going to sit here repeating every post in the thread fives time over because every kid who wants to pick a fight over a subject he doesn't understand of a thread he hasn't read expects me to deliver a summary of the entire thread personalised for each of you.

What is wrong with you people?

 

[lexluthermiester]

What is wrong with you people?

We're all asking ourselves that about you...

Seriously. You didn't even bother answering the driver version question nor disclosed your troubleshooting methods(if you've done any). All you did was say: "Hey I got a problem here, it's not that serious but we need to make NVidia see it and fix it right fraking now because my gaming experience isn't frame perfect!!".

You're not disclosing the nitty-gritty details and you're not showing us anything very serious. As such we're not inclined to do to much helping..

 

[Mussels]

Isn't this just the same bug that Nv has in the patch notes about VR titles going stuttery when monitoring software is open?

 

[lexluthermiester]

Isn't this just the same bug that Nv has in the patch notes about VR titles going stuttery when monitoring software is open?

Maybe? I don't think so though. But then again, how can we know? Not enough detailed information has been disclosed. The only real configuration info that was shown was "1600x900" in that Imgur page. Not a lot to go on...

 

[xcasxcursex]

We're all asking ourselves that about you...

Seriously. You didn't even bother answering the driver version question nor disclosed your troubleshooting methods(if you've done any). All you did was say: "Hey I got a problem here, it's not that serious but we need to make NVidia see it and fix it right fraking now because my gaming experience isn't frame perfect!!".

You're not disclosing the nitty-gritty details and you're not showing us anything very serious. As such we're not inclined to do to much helping..

Literally all of that is wrong. I'm going to ignore you until it's apparent that you have actually read something here and want to have an adult discussion and not an argument about nothing.

Isn't this just the same bug that Nv has in the patch notes about VR titles going stuttery when monitoring software is open?

Holy shiny PC masterrace gods an actual constructive discussion, thank you.

It's not necessarily the same bug but I have noticed that one and I seriously wonder if they are related or even the same. The conditions for VR are similar to the ones I need to reproduce this. I'll honestly be surprised if they aren't at least related.

But then again, how can we know? Not enough detailed information has been disclosed. The only real configuration info that was shown was "1600x900" in that Imgur page. Not a lot to go on...

We can't know. To get that deep under the hood you need to be nvidia. Yet another reason why they do actually need to look into this. Don't forget all the other little details you left out, like that 1600x900t being on a 3090, and ensuring you get 250fps at least, and why you need to, so you can make sure your system is actually doing that, etc, etc,etc - but you're right, there isn't much to it. I went to quite some effort to make sure it was that simple to reproduce. Not for your guys' benefit, but for nvidia's.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I'm going to ignore you until it's apparent that you have actually read something here

Oh ok.

Don't forget all the other little details you left out

It's not my problem, it's yours. I did not leave anything out. You did.

DRIVER VERSION NUMBER
CPU
MOTHERBOARD
RAM
EXACT GPU MODEL
GAMES BEING TESTED
DISPLAY MODEL
DRIVER CONFIG DETAILS

Screenshots are most helpful.

These are details that would be helpful in diagnosing your little problem. But you haven't disclosed any. So either disclose information that will actually help in recreating the problem, or go get on NVidia's Reddit page..