ClockBlocker (profiled AMD power-management control)

Yet another version, it's just for one-issue this time.. But that issue is large enough to warrant it.

 

I love this. I really wanted something like it ever since I upgraded to my r9 390. (Working with this)

When playing games that have a very low gpu-load, my card would downclock itself hard, even with the power limit maxed. This was always annoying because at various points the games would have a spike in objects on screen, demanding more power, leading to a sudden fps drop. I'd need to downclock my card hard to approximately what the game needs, to try and avoid sudden spikes in clocks/load.

Two examples of this: Path of Exile and Eve Online.

With Clockblocker, I don't have this issue. I can keep my default clock and it stays stable. Thanks a LOT for this!

 

The installer doesn't seem to work for me.

I'm running an i5 3570K with an AMD R9 390 and 8GB of RAM.

I can see three Clockbustersetup.exe processes in the task manager but it doesn't seem to do anything, even after waiting for 20 minutes.

Tried running as admin, but it didn't do anything.

 

I am no programmer so I have no idea but is it possible to make it so when the FULLSCREEN-PROGRAM rule is set to "Block" that the screensaver does not trigger the action? Would like the GPU downclocked when PC is left running.
I am guessing I can make a new Rule if I can find a screensaver exe but I have no idea where to look!
Thanks for sharing your hard work

 

I would strongly suspect that something is funky with your Windows installation (as a Setup Factory built installer isn't starting), and so I can't guarantee that an alternate download will work. Nevertheless you're more than welcome to try.

7zip self-extractor for 1.1-0a


--If this does work, don't use the auto-update feature. The auto-update feature is based on and uses the same SF-installer.

Should it work, and ClockBlocker works on your machine (despite issues with the installer), I'll add an option for an installer-less download here-on-out.

Screensavers are the same as any other process ... but often have a ".scr" process-name, I can probably also query the screensaver set in Windows and automatically exclude that process.


-That's a good one, I don't personally use screensavers yet I bet alot of other people do.

Thanks for the suggestion! That's going on my TODO list.

 

1.1-1 released.

-More bug fixes. (mainly w/ IPC coordination)
-GhostriderJnr's ScreenSavers suggestion added. (the option is on the general settings tab at the bottom)


A 7zip archive (non-installer) is also available here.

 

Tried it out, but sadly the result is exactly the same. Thanks for taking the time to try and fix it though. I'll be taking a look at the program again when I upgrade to Windows 10.

 

Another possibility is that your downloads aren't finishing for whatever reason. Although this also would probably be odd, as the download server is just "Apache" driven (and Apache is pretty defacto normal).. Still, maybe it could happen with a bad hop somewhere along the path to the server or due to some firewall software (eg, the notorious Zone Alarm).

Here's some info on the current downloads so that you can verify they've downloaded properly. (in entirety, and not corrupted in any way during the transfer)

Code:

ClockBlocker 1.1-1 bin.exe
File Size: 7.42 MB (7,785,430 bytes)
MD5: 8E704A8E4545D0542066D78D03ABC325

ClockBlocker_Setup.exe (of the current 1.1-1 version)
File Size: 9.23 MB (9,685,273 bytes)
MD5: D6981DB32BCE0ED7E02F6EE865A0B421

It's just a shot in the dark, sorry that I can't really offer much more here ideas wise.

 

A2Razor, just tried 1.1.1 out and its working beautifully! Thanks so much for this, games never felt so smooth!

 

Great tool dude, and i have problem with the card about the clock's,

i will wait for a few more update's to be more stable. (no offence)

is there and auto update option/check for updates option?

 

I just realized, it doesn't work fully when overclocking the card.
Base clocks are 1040, and this works fine with it.
With that said, I can overclock to 1150mhz and games work fine and make use of it. But when clockblocker is active, it tops up at 1069mhz and refuses to go higher. It's stable at 1069, and won't budge from it.

It's a small issue for me since the games I need this for rarely require an overclock, but it's something to take into account.

 

Yup I noticed that as well, just didn't say anything. I was too happy about having a stable clock speed. :banana:

 

When you talk about stability, you're only talking about clock speeds right?

I haven't been working on the clock speed adjustment lately, and have been purely focused on the overall software-stability of the new 1.1 branch (namely the separation in to separate processes). Was very close to making the decision to remove the "Release-Candidate" tag from the title, and considering the current code 'stable'.


--But it sounds like it might not be stable for you. Are you having it crash on you? If you are, I need more detail on those crashes to track them down.


Update checks wise, there's a menu option "Misc > Software Update" that checks if a new version of ClockBlocker is available. There wasn't automatic checking for a new update on startup, as I assumed that this would be 'annoying' more than helpful. (that people would be checking back for new releases and reporting issues, if they had issues)

I could very easily add a check on startup and a prompt as an option, if people want this.

It looks like the maximum clockspeeds with Afterburner set speeds is 1091 on the Fury-X (at least on Windows 8.1). This seems to be a trait of both OpenCL and DirectCompute workloads being active at the same time as MSI Afterburner's clock adjustment. This will require further testing to see if there's any easy way to exceed it.

Lower your overclock and you may be able to get the clockspeeds a bit higher during blocking.


EDIT: To clarify, once a threshold is exceeded the clockspeed drops down to some predetermined amount it seems.

Update: A quick read around online looking for similar behavior posted by other users in GPGPU software shows that people running SETI and Fold@Home have similar happening. Some of them claimed that it was driver related, and that older AMD drivers did not have the issue (without listing specific version numbers sadly), others mentioned that they only had this happen after updating to Windows 10 (clearly that part is wrong, as I'm seeing it on 8.1).

I can verify that MemtestCL produces identical to running ClockBlocker. Will dig in to this more later today.


Update 2: Before I needed to head out here, I ran some more tests quickly with the 15.12 drivers, and also with TriXX and AMD's built in OverDrive. Overdrive and Afterburner appear to have a slightly different method of adjusting the clockspeed compared to TriXX.

---Whatever TriXX does for clock adjustment the clockspeeds stick in CL & DirectCompute loads on my Fury X. I managed to do a desktop lock at 1115mhz.

---15.12 Crimsons behave identically with clockspeeds to the 15.11.1 Crimsons.

 

From mobile over VNC to desktop:

Forwarding what I got texted by a friend that I asked on Afterburner's behavior. Apparently Afterburner can behave identically to TriXX if 'Unofficial overclocking mode' is set to "with powerplay support".


--I will test this later, but he's reporting that this works and that blocking is correct @ 1210mhz on his Fury-X.


Update:
I can confirm [at least on the Fury-X and Windows 8.1] that both Afterburner w/ Unofficial Overclocking (powerplay enabled) and also TriXX overclocking, work with clockspeeds of over 1091 while ClockBlocker is active.

 

It don't work and crash my PC. Now avg says I have virus?? Not cool
Register to say beware this program!

 

Just wow, not even sure what to say to that... Saying that someone's software is malicious is a very serious accusation. If you want to talk "Not cool" things, perhaps you should consider what you just did there.. I take that as a direct attack on me, IMO.


For one thing, if I wanted to distribute malware I'd have to be one of the most dumb malware authors in existence, as I clearly gave out my name and would have distributed something under my company's name at that too. If you don't believe me, feel free to look up that ComroeStudios is a registered LLC. This is not the only software that I've released or worked on.

... Now I'm not saying that false positives don't exist in Virus Scanners, and that certainly may be what's happened here. I personally use Bitdefender ... and so I will drop everything that I'm doing and immediately install AVG on a machine to look at this.


I'll reiterate, I can't say that I'm happy with that accusation or your wording of it..


Update:
I am unable to reproduce your AVG detection both on a physical machine (Windows 8.1), and also under VM installations of Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10. You may have another infection and only coincidentally just noticed that infection recently.

Virus Total results for "1.1-1" build --
ClockBlocker.exe

ClockBlocker_HelperModule.exe

ClockBlocker_x64.exe

Loader_x64.exe

OpenCL.dll

uninstall.exe


ClockBlocker_Setup.exe, Loader_x86.exe, waiting in queue and uploaded by me (taking a really long time, something may be wrong with their servers right now). The others were apparently already uploaded by others.

Loader_x86.exe

ClockBlocker_Setup.exe


Update #2:
I will be building another copy of the loaders with different compiler flags as this seems to take care of the TrendMicro false positives. The new builds will go in version 1.1-2 as soon as I complete the features that I intend to add this time around. (would not have impacted AVG, regardless)


Working on these features to push out with that:

-Recent Windows list (ordered list of recently run processes in the foreground), this should make it easy to select a process that runs during inactivity (like a screensaver) for exclusion.
-Auto Update check on startup (optional)

 

So, I've used ClockBlocker for a few days now while actually playing and not just testing. It's really effective and shows just how much AMD f*cked up with their power saving. The impact is huge especially in old games, I played some Supreme Commander (in 4K even) and the stutter was terrible (drops to ~30FPS with very low GPU load), with ClockBlocker running it was beautifully smooth.

BF4 DX11 also became much, MUCH smoother with ClockBlocker, it's a beautiful experience with FreeSync now. Without CB I had to play using Mantle and no FS because in DX11 the "power saving" was simply ridiculous.

I also ran into the issue of OC settings not reaching max clocks. What I noticed though was that clocks do increase to the set value when the cards are at very high loads (4K TW3). Essentially what happens on my system is that ClockBlocker enforces a minimum clock (stock). The actual clock then varies between stock and OC, but can definitely hit max clocks as well. This hasn't really bothered me as this clock scaling seems to work sensibly, but I'll try unofficial OC mode with PowerPlay too.

About game detection with no specific profile - DX9 games seem to trigger this reliably with no game-specific profile, but DX11 generally isn't detected on my system (like TW3, BF4). Specific profiles however seem to be reliable, so this isn't a huge issue.

In regards to general stability, I haven't had any crashes or bad behavior.

 

Next version released.

1.1-2a is a test version to make sure the update checks work properly in the live version. Nothing else of significance has been changed.

--Feel free to update if you're on 1.1-2 in order to help test-drive the startup check. Otherwise, we'll just see in the future versions over-time if this works properly for everyone. (Hopefully anyway)

 

Can we get a 7zip archive (non-installer) for the latest version? Be nice to include a link to it on the first post and your website.

Thanks.

 

Sure, no problem. I'll start bundling a 7z extractor for each version in addition to an installer (now linked in the main forum post), and put some flag in the next version to disable auto-update for a non-installed copy (or maybe just redo the updater to not need a setup shield).


I was unsure that the 7zip archive was needed. --Does that mean the SF shield doesn't run for you, but the software otherwise works ok when unpacked from the 7zips?

--Will update main site later.