ClockBlocker (profiled AMD power-management control)

Discussion in 'Videocards - AMD Radeon Drivers Section' started by A2Razor, Dec 10, 2015.

  1. A2Razor

    A2Razor Guest

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    I'm expecting that this is a bug and not because of two game processes, but because of a high system utilization (low responsiveness of the OS) during startup of the game. That ClockBlocker assumes the helper process didn't launch correctly and attempts a second time to launch it.

    -Yet two helpers at once is definitely not supposed to happen, and the helpers themselves are supposed to also check for this. So, my code is doing something screwy for sure and I need to re-inspect those IPC coordination fail-safes.


    Thanks for the clarification. This gives me a pretty strong idea where the problem would be.
     
    Last edited: Mar 5, 2016
  2. Sparty137

    Sparty137 Guest

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  3. JonasBeckman

    JonasBeckman Ancient Guru

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    Partially at least, 300 series and Fury / Nano has some extra setting for toggling off some power-saving feature, I assume it's very much like that registry tweak discovered a while back.

    Will be interesting to see if it's a full fix or if this software will still have it's uses, AMD might of course also break this in a future driver so I'll keep blocker around for a while yet even if this might work fine for now. :D

    EDIT: Going by the info in the below post then yeah it seems it might just tweak the hystersis limit of the clock speed settings and thus it's less sensitive, still a improvement but it'll still downclock the GPU as it detects there's less load on it which might end up still causing minor stuttering or fps fluctuations.
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2016
  4. Anvi

    Anvi Guest

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    The power efficiency toggle does decrease downclocking, but it's still not fixed. For example MMO Blade & Soul can dip to the 800-900MHz range even when FPS is not maxed.

    I've set GPU to 1100 MHz..
     

  5. SimBy

    SimBy Guest

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    There are circumstances where that can happen. If GPU stalls due to CPU overhead or background loading for example. But that may not be whats happening in your case.
     
  6. tntnt

    tntnt Guest

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    Does clockblock still work with the latest 16.3 crimson drivers?
     
  7. sammarbella

    sammarbella Guest

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    Why not?

    ClockBlocker is still a good tool after 16.2 drivers.

    The added power efficiency toggle in 16.3 only work if it's set to off (on by default) and even then it only disables some of the power saving feature and only for series 300/Fury GPUs.
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2016
  8. tntnt

    tntnt Guest

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    Just because I've seen a user on reddit report that the new driver broke clockblock. If so, I wont update my drivers.
     
  9. sammarbella

    sammarbella Guest

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    Can you post a link to that?Or a quote and a link?

    Thanks.

    :)
     
  10. tntnt

    tntnt Guest

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    Well, can't seem to find it now... must have been downvoted, maybe a troll.
    Will update to new drivers and try :)
     

  11. signex

    signex Ancient Guru

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    Will this work on a R9 280X?
     
  12. primetime^

    primetime^ Master Guru

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    Yes it will...Although its not really any reason to need it for this card. I only had one game where my card would down clock...was rebel galaxy. But it only did this because it was already at fps limit of 75 and didn't need full clocks to keep it there.
    It doesn't hurt to see if it helps in your case
     
  13. PrMinisterGR

    PrMinisterGR Ancient Guru

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    The 280x doesn't have the problem.
     
  14. signex

    signex Ancient Guru

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    Alright, thanks for the answer!
     
  15. lordcarlos

    lordcarlos Guest

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    With 16.3 DP 1.2 finally works without screens randomly going black. So I got that going for me.

    I still have fps/downgrade problems in Eve Online. For example in an asteroid belt or zooming in on the trusters i get 30 fps with low clock.
    I can disable the power management, but then it's at 1000mhz all the time. Even when nothing is happening. And of course that will increase the temperature at least ~12C.

    I for one am disappointed.
     

  16. signex

    signex Ancient Guru

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    The R9 380 does right? wich is what i just ordered.

    I've seen a video where the guy said putting power limit +20% also fixes this issue.
     
  17. LocoDiceGR

    LocoDiceGR Ancient Guru

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    the 16.3 fixes the issue.

    I have the 380, i saw difference in witcher 3, more smooth gameplay.
     
  18. signex

    signex Ancient Guru

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    Oh it was software related?

    Glad it got fixed!
     
  19. Hexen525

    Hexen525 Guest

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    11 pages and I am on limited time. I hope this has not already been addressed and I missed it.

    Why does the app ask for my password if I want it to start when Windows boots? No other app I have asks that. And even then, does it want the full password, or the PIN M$ has me use? Does this info go back to anyone?

    Thanx for the help. Love the app!
     
  20. A2Razor

    A2Razor Guest

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    The information is not sent to anyone and you're prompted each time because it's not stored. Why it's done this way is because I have a strong belief that no application should add itself to system startup with a "UAC bypass" (aka, such as via TaskScheduler) without explicit and clear permission of the user. ClockBlocker needs administrative rights because of how it performs polling of running tasks, essentially so that it can read the path and filename properly of Windows belonging to other elevated programs (such as MMO's that bundle a protection software -- eg, GameGuard).

    Far as phoning home: The only traffic that ClockBlocker generates on startup is via the winhttp library for its startup update check (if that's been enabled, it's not by default). I also do not log these update checks or attempt to do anything such as building usage statistics, although I could I suppose.


    Anyway, long story short I feel that a user should be aware of everything that wants to run with their PC, and to be in control of that process.



    EDIT: Forgot to answer the other question, it's the account password, not the pin.

    Earlier in the thread I also went in to the creation of a TaskScheduler entry by hand as some people did take issue with this. Something like that is also fine if you don't want to use the built in autostart addition, it'll achieve the same effect.
     
    Last edited: Mar 28, 2016

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