Nvidia Power managment mode observations

User Support Hub Hardware & Peripherals
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I’ve just been experimenting with the Power managment mode in the Nvidia control panel.
Bear with me on this one, it’s a lengthy example but I’d welcome any thoughts on this, and it may be of help to some of you.

Like many suggestions I’ve seen in posts elsewhere on this forum I’ve always had it set to Prefer maximum performance.

I keep a close eye on my CPU & GPU performance (using open hardware monitor software) after trying a bit of tweaking or after driver updates etc…

I usually have my FPS limited to 33fps (more recently at 40fps with last Nvidia driver) in the Nvidia control panel and have Vsync set to fast in there also. This usually sees me running with about 80-85% GPU core usage and temps about 65-75C.

I know a lot of people advocate running GPU at 100% but I don’t agree with that, and prefer to have a little bit of spare capacity for when I go into more demanding areas and it keeps my GPU about 7C lower in temp than 100%.

Today I was flying along over the Swiss alps in my Cessna Caravan and noticed my GPU was pegged at 95-99% core usage. I was up at 11,000 feet with live weather on with lots of clouds. I thought maybe it was due to the amounts of cloud being rendered etc… But when I finally flew into some clear areas with only a few clouds on the horizon it was still showing 95-99%.

Taking a look at Open hardware monitor I saw this

gpu pc

For those of you not familair with open hardware monitor, the first column is the current value, the 2nd column the minimum and the 3rd column the Max value recorded.

Normally I would see the GPU Core clock speed at 1980 Mhz all the time and the GPU Core % around 80-85% & temps about 70C in that type of scenery.
As you can see it shows the core running at 1230Mhz with 95% and the temps down at 53C.

I then realised that after my recent driver update the Nvidia control panel power management mode was set to Optimal power rather than my usual Prefer maximum.

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Now I hadn’t noticed any performance drop in MSFS with it set like this, it was still maintaining my locked 40fps (the screenshot was taken when I was using 33fps), so I continued for another 40 mins or so to my landing.
I kept a close watch on the Hardware monitor and realised it was just lowering or raising the core Mhz speed to keep the usage at about 99%. So as I came into my landing area with more AI buildings and airport scenery etc… it just bumps up my core to 1980Mhz to maintain the 99% core usage.

As a result I get lower GPU temps and less power usage for most of the flight and no less performance fps wise.

I also noticed I had no stuttering on landing/taxiing (I don’t get much anyway but this time it was zero).

So it would seem it’s better to leave it on Optimal performance rather than prefer maximum.

Any thoughts on any downsides to doing this?

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I’ve noticed similar effects already on my own system, though I’ve been running in various parts of the world with the NVidia Performance Monitor overlay. The Nvidia tool doesn’t note min/max values like Open Hardware Monitor, but just glancing at it shows the GPU clock speed throttling up and down along with temp as load varies, but the GPU is always running at or very close to 100%.

FPS may go up and down moment to moment as scenery complexity changes (I don’t limit framerate since I have an adaptive-sync monitor), but the GPU clock speeds are changing near-instantly to manage the load, with no performance or responsiveness downside.

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On my 1080ti I have always run it at maximum performance and the preset highest for video settings.
Ive never had any troubles. The cards six years old, and I always run it on highest settings available an have never had any troubles. 98-100% 82c just where the card should operate according to Nvidia.

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Yes I’m sure you can run it at full 100% if you want, but the question rasied by my experience with the optimal setting is why do you need to?

If you can maintain the smoothness (and or fps) you want and run it at lower temps/power usage there doesn’t seem to be any downside to leaving at optimal and letting the card adapt to the needs required at any particular moment.

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I dont know I take it that optimal means the recommended setting made by the mfg for the card. If I buy a sports car, I dont try to figure out how to get better gas mileage, I drive it like I stole it ;p

But hey thats just me…

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I use optimal setting with great results. I think this is best because having it on max performance just makes the card run at full throttle even when it doesn’t need it. On older cards this would result in a more noticeable performance increase but newer cards are better at regulating themselves. Personally, having tested the optimal mode and prefer maximum performance modes with 3DMark I have found that on my 3080, it makes zero difference. However, the maximum performance makes the card idle hotter and the fans run louder when they don’t need to.

If I may ask, why do you limit your fps? Clearly your card can do more if it’s throttling down, so why would you not want a couple extra frames?

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Well my point is that with the optimal settings my performance is the same but I use less power to acheive it and therefore generate less heat.
To use your car analogy, my 200mph car is still doing 200mph but using half as much fuel and may last longer before it blows a gasket.

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Never try to save wear and tear on PC parts, full throttle as often as possible.

You’ll sell, give away, throw out 90% of everything short of mechanical hard drives and fans well before it terminates via usage unless defective.

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I wasn’t trying to save anything.
I stumbled on this option after a driver update changed one of my settings.

What I’m saying is setting it to prefer maximum has no benefits in performance for me. Setting it to optimal I have the same performance with less power used.

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this very simple stuff, people who doesn’t annoyed by jumping fps use 100%, if you feel discomfort like me, when fps jump from 30 to 75 all the time, you will prefer use 30-40-60fps v-sync or limit by another way fps depend of your monitor and system, that give frames to the monitor… have to say after su7 arrive, and all stutters gone lock fps have even more sense, because when you lock fps, and have just half stutters of was before lock is not very big deal, but when the lags gone, fixed fps is what you got in all another games, with one different that’s games have fixed 97fps v-sync+g-sync adaptive monitor+ultra low latency settings in nvidia drivers give this fps number, and msfs give me fixed 33,3~ and i’m good with both situations… so is all about what people prefer, than what better

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I had overheating concerns with my RTX3070 (90-93c sometimes) and did a LOT of searching the web on this very setting. Many threads on other sites (Reddit, NVidia, hardware sites, etc) warned not to set this to Maximum Performance because of overheating concerns. They may not be correct, but there was enough of a split opinion on the subject that I decided to err on the side of caution and set it to Normal and check the results. I noticed no difference, so now I keep it at Normal and still use Ultra settings.

As info though, I did an online chat with nVidia and asked what my max temp was, and the tech said it was about 92-93c and that if it reached that high, it would either shut off or reduce performance accordingly. Yeah, I should have asked about the setting, but I forgot. :angry:

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Out of interest what is your windows power plan set to? as this may effect things.

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90-93 is normal for highest temp spot, if the temp of gpu sensor is not right in any condition you use it, and need to watch what happens in ambient, case ventilation and video card cooling system, throttle temp for most of gpu sensor is 83-85*c “highest temp spot” is parameter, what you can found in some software, and you can ignore it