Reversing NvAPI to Programmatically Overclock Nvidia GPUs

#1

Post by cubicfur » Mon, Aug 10, 2015, 10:48 AM UTC

Reversing NvAPI to Programmatically Overclock Nvidia GPUs
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Re: Reversing NvAPI to Programmatically Overclock Nvidia GPUs

#2

Post by warcode » Mon, Aug 10, 2015, 1:00 PM UTC

NVIDIA Inspector and GPU-Z both have simple, clean UIs and have been all I've needed in my GPU overclocking and custom bios adventures.

Re: Reversing NvAPI to Programmatically Overclock Nvidia GPUs

#3

Post by Fede_V » Mon, Aug 10, 2015, 1:12 PM UTC

I wonder why nvidia refuses to release their public API unless you sign an NDA. Are they just worried people will buy cheaper cards and overclock them?

Re: Reversing NvAPI to Programmatically Overclock Nvidia GPUs

#4

Post by infinity0 » Mon, Aug 10, 2015, 1:18 PM UTC

Only partially relevant to the subject, but note that this tool still requires the nvidia proprietary drivers to work.

https://secure.freedesktop.org/~cbrill/dri-log/dri-devel-201... and we already had this information because nvidia-settings is open source :)

The subject post is about reversing the application/driver interface; to get reclocking working on the FOSS nouveau driver would require reversing the driver/hardware interface.

Background: currently newer nvidia cards boot up at a very low clock speed (~0.1x normal speed) and require the driver to reclock it. But nvidia isn't releasing the docs on how to do this.

[0] http://www.x.org/wiki/Events/XDC2014/XDC2014SplietREclock/ [1] http://nouveau.spliet.org/evoc.html [2] https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-st... [3] https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-st...

Re: Reversing NvAPI to Programmatically Overclock Nvidia GPUs

#5

Post by castratikron » Mon, Aug 10, 2015, 1:19 PM UTC

Cool

Re: Reversing NvAPI to Programmatically Overclock Nvidia GPUs

#6

Post by lbotos » Mon, Aug 10, 2015, 1:42 PM UTC

Fede_V wrote: post #3

I wonder why nvidia refuses to release their public API unless you sign an NDA. Are they just worried people will buy cheaper cards and overclock them?

Isn't that what already happens? I've done it a few times in my life.

Re: Reversing NvAPI to Programmatically Overclock Nvidia GPUs

#7

Post by creshal » Mon, Aug 10, 2015, 1:42 PM UTC

warcode wrote: post #2

NVIDIA Inspector and GPU-Z both have simple, clean UIs and have been all I've needed in my GPU overclocking and custom bios adventures.

Neither is open source though, as far as I know.

Re: Reversing NvAPI to Programmatically Overclock Nvidia GPUs

#8

Post by kcbanner » Mon, Aug 10, 2015, 2:00 PM UTC

creshal wrote: post #7

warcode wrote: post #2

NVIDIA Inspector and GPU-Z both have simple, clean UIs and have been all I've needed in my GPU overclocking and custom bios adventures.

Neither is open source though, as far as I know.

It seems that any implementation would need to use the closed source NvAPI.

Re: Reversing NvAPI to Programmatically Overclock Nvidia GPUs

#9

Post by creshal » Mon, Aug 10, 2015, 2:38 PM UTC

Fede_V wrote: post #3

I wonder why nvidia refuses to release their public API unless you sign an NDA. Are they just worried people will buy cheaper cards and overclock them?

> Are they just worried people will buy cheaper cards and overclock them?

Then they wouldn't hand out the API to people writing OC tools. It's probably just standard corporate paranoia.

Re: Reversing NvAPI to Programmatically Overclock Nvidia GPUs

#10

Post by timboslice » Mon, Aug 10, 2015, 2:38 PM UTC

lbotos wrote: post #6

Fede_V wrote: post #3

I wonder why nvidia refuses to release their public API unless you sign an NDA. Are they just worried people will buy cheaper cards and overclock them?

Isn't that what already happens? I've done it a few times in my life.

I was looking at the GTX 980 but settled on a GTX 970. It overclocks pretty well and I put the money I saved into a new SSD :)