03.07
What’s NVidia PowerMizer?
NVidia PowerMizer is the name of the technology included in most modern nvidia graphic cards, for both desktops and noteboks. PowerMizer makes your graphics card auto throttle on demand based on the applications you are running. If PowerMizer detects a 3D application running, it will raise the graphics card clock speed to provide higher performance, while it will lower it while rendering only 2D content comsuming less engery and thus disipating less heat. It will even adapt your graphics card clock speed depending on how hot your GPU gets to prevent overheating. That sounds good, isn’t it?
Yeah, it is good, if it weren’t one of the most buggy features implemented in a graphics card. Known problems are:
- Some graphic cards suffer screen flickering (horizontal lines for a fraction of a second) each time the GPU clock speed changes. And…
- The algorithms for adaptive clock speed cause the GPU constantly change clock speed even without any 3D running.
- The overheat protection makes some cards to throttle down while playing games causing horrible performance even in the first minutes of playing when the card temps are safe.
- The NVidia drivers does not provide a good control panel to change PowerMizer settings for most graphic cards.
PowerMizer Manager
The PowerMizer Manager is a simple Open Source application to manage the NVidia PowerMizer settings. The main features are:
- Override PowerMizer Control
Configure your video card to behave as you want. Set up a fixed performance level or autothrottle as needed.
- Backup and restore video settings
Make a backup of your video settings to avoid messing things up.
- Instant Apply!
After selecting the PowerMizer behaviour, apply the settings inmediately. No reboot is required.(YMMV)
PowerMizer Manager 0.98 Screenshot
Upcoming features:
- PureVideo HD own speed profiles control?.
- Tested SLI/Hybrid Powermizer control?
Lastest Version Changelog (0.99):
- Experimental support for Nvidia SLI and Hybrid Systems. (See FAQ)
- Insane Instant Apply!. (See FAQ)
- Tested against newest NVIDIA drivers.
- Bugfix: Fixed values no longer interfere with Autothrottle values. Thanks Patrick, Jake!
Downloads
- PowerMizer Manager 0.99 Standalone Exe
- PowerMizer Manager 0.99 Windows Installer
- PowerMizer Manager 0.99 Source Code
FAQ (Please read before reporting problems)
- What is the Experimental SLI/Hybrid support?
Until now Powermizer Manager rejected SLI and Hybrid systems. From version 0.98, Powermizer Manager should run on those systems. This however hasn’t been tested yet. The settings applied to this systems can be effective in one card, both cards or none of them at all. FEEDBACK IS NEEDED.
- What is the Insane Instant Apply! ?
Several people requested “less clicks” to apply the settings, meaning that once they know the app is working for them, they do not want to be asked every time if the settings must be applied, or if a registry backup is adviced. From 0.98 and on, holding the Shift Key while clicking the “Instant Apply!” button will skip all the unnecessary checks.
- There are two executable files in the Windows Installer Version. Which one should I run?
The Setup.exe file will check if all the prerequisites (.Net framework) is installed and install it otherwise prior to install the PowerMizer Manager. The NVPMMSetup.msi is the PowerMizer Manager itself.
- My video card gets hot when PowerMizer is disabled. Is this dangerous?
It shouldn’t. Obviously if you set PowerMIzer disabled, or a fixed Max. Performace profile, it will get a bit hotter, but it should never be out of specs. PowerMizer is and Optional Feature, not a Harware security measure.
- My video card is still changing the clock speed/filickering the screen although PowerMizer is disabled.
Some cards/driver versions will have a predefined behaviour when PowerMizer is disabled. Some of them will be at max speed. In some cards, even if a parameter in the registry is trying to disable PowerMizer, they will ignore it. If you want fixed speed levels, you should first enable PowerMizer, and then select Fixed Profiles for Battery and AC.
- The application says that nvidia key has not been found.
This application only works with modern NVIDIA video cards. If you are sure you’re using a NVidia adapter, update the drivers to the last version you have available at your OEM vendor or the NVIDIA website. If it still fails, please send a bug report using the “Problems?” button, and do not forget the attachment.
- The application says something about UAC.
This aplication need to be able to change some registry values. In recent versions of Windows, you will need administrative provileges to do so. If you have UAC (User Access Control) activated, you will need to run the executable through “right-click->Run as administrator…” .Alternatively you can right click the executable (not the shortcut) and under the “Compatibility tab” you can check the option “Run this program as Administrator”. NOTE that the executable is located in the install forlder you selected, usually Program Files/Powermizer Manager.
- I have a SLI setup and this app only works for the first video card.
The normal behaviour in an SLI setup is that powermizer can only be disabled in the first video card. The second one will be on Max. performance profile always. Anyway more information is required from those with SLI setups. If it’s your case, please send a bug report with the “Problems?” button and don’t forget the attachment. Note that from version 0.98, your results may vary.
- I have a multimonitor setup and the video card is always at max speed even with PowerMizer disabled.
When the graphic card detects two or more monitors, it will clock itself to Max. performance profile no matter what the PowerMizer parameters are. This is in the NVIDIA specs.
- What’s up with the powermizer profiles when playing 720p/1080p video content?
When you video card is playing HD content, it uses a new NVIDIA technology called PureVideo HD. When PureVideo is running, it seems it has it’s own power/performance profiles to guarantee a good HD experience. As far as I know, this profiles can’t be controlled by registry parameters, so at the moment, the settings applied through Powermizer Manger will only have effect as long as no HD content is being played. We’re trying to figure out how to control this profiles, to implement this feature in next releases if that’s possible at all.
- How can I check the current clock speed, and see if it changes or not when “adaptive clock speed” is selected?
A good GPU monitor program is GPU-Z.
Dear Author of `NVPMManager `
This is truly the optimal solution for all desperate NV @ MS-WIN7 laptop users.
… and actually a Great piece of Code too !
Thank you for all the efforts and a huge respect for your great skill.
Your NVPMManger software should be a Memento for
both the NVIDIA and Microsoft Corporation, as their contemptuous ignorance
was the reason for many damaged notebook batteries.
I’m glad you liked it. The truth is that the feedback I’m receiving is quite good.
It is a shame that Nvidia does not take care of this.
hey, thanks for the app
i used to have vista x32 and i recently clean installed win 7 x64 on my laptop, and from there my GPU (8600M GS) started heating up more than necessary. this never happened in vista. ive tried different drivers (from both OEM and NVIDIA), but no luck.
i am completely new to the whole powermizer thing and i ticked on “Enable PowerMizer feature” from the manager. so far i cant see any changes, yet. the GPU heat so far hasnt gone down and is still as hot as before (58-61 degrees). ive tried all options within the manager and the auto throttle seems to maintain it the same way as before and better than fixed performance (min. perf/max powersave). a little odd i think.
any idea on this?
Hi there,
It is quite weird that you have lower temperatures using adaptive clock speed than fixing it to the lowest performace level. How are you measuring them anyway? Are you using GPU-Z?
If you are using GPU-Z, check that the manager is working for you taking a look at the clock frequencies when you select “adaptive clock speed” and “fixed performance”.
Anyway, gpu temperature reading in laptops is not at all an accurate indicator of the GPU load. Keep in mind that most laptops have a large heatsink for both the CPU and the GPU. So, even if the GPU speed is fixed in a low level, thus disipating less heat, you’ll keep reading higher GPU temps it the CPU is still working hard and heating the heatsink. That’s why the fan in your laptop starts spining faster both when there’s a high CPU and / or GPU demand producing temps raising.
Sounds like a fantastic app, so sad it relies on .NET :/
Please by all means make a version that does NOT depend on .NET !
Thank You
nVidia should have integrated something like this into their Control Panel, but for some reason they didn’t.
Thanks again for sharing your work!!
Is it works on windows 7 x64?
Sure it does.
Hello, have tried your standalone version. When starting the program, an error dialog complains that powermizer settings could not be read and to open the console for more info. Console lists several registry keys that could not be found.
OS: Win7pro 64bit
Drivers: 197.45
Card: GT 130m
Thanks,
Hi there. Please submit your debug info using the Problems button so I can take a look at it, ok?
It’s on the way… thanks for your prompt support!
I have a problem. The fixed performance level mode works, but throttle mode doesn’t exactly. When I had “on battery” set to the lowest profile and throttle turned on for “on ac adapter”, with the ac adapter it was just stuck on the lowest stage. Then when I set AC to fixed medium and battery to throttle, I noticed that on battery it would only throttle to medium (but important to note that it did throttle.) There is another thing. Could you add a fourth power level because some cards have 4 stages. Thanks for the program though. You should allow donations.
Actually, throttle does work but it is limited by the fixed performance level of the other dealy (AC or on battery).
That’s quite strange. I’ve neer seen this weird behaviour before. What are you doing to see if the throttle works? Are you playing video by any chance?
Keep in mind that with powermizer manager you can tweak the performance levels with 2D-3D rendering apps, but you can’t manage the performance levels that your card will use while playing video. Right now, I do not know any way to tweak those.
About the 4th profile, that’s a great idea. I would add it in a future release, as soon as I figure out which registry values work on each profile for the 4th level (my card has only 3).
Any help appreciated.
If you’d like to see my registry files just tell me where to find them and I will email them to you.
I have some idea on how to point you to towards teh-right direction to resolve the 4th profile issue.
I wasn`t aware of it`s actual presence untill I started to fiddle with the NVidia`s overclocking utility – “NVidia System Performance” (a part of the NV`s “System Tools” package). After installing this, I`ve noticed some major changes in the registry. I had not the time to track them further down to the detail, so this is really just a my common sense.. I`m sure, little reverse engineering may help you find some more facts about this. I`m pretty sure, there`s no source code of the NVidia System Performance utility public availiable.
Yes, my card has four power levels. Two only when HDMI is enabled.
Hi there.
As you may know, information about the Nvidia driver is not abundant. All the work in Powermizer Manager has been done recollecting pieces of info from the linux/FreeBSD driver, and bits of official NVIDIA docs. That said, I found out that at least in the linux driver, there are only 3 PowerMizer Profiles, regardless how many performance level the gpu has. This are two separate concepts. Go go go, NVIDIA!
I am pretty sure that the windows driver behaves the same way, so for now on, there’s no way to manage this 4 power levels independetly.
If anyone has some more info in this topic, I’ll be more than happy to study it and if possible, implement this in future releases.
[...] 怀疑是它引起的，可以用关闭PowerMizer的方法解决。这时要用到一个软件：PowerMizer Manager。 PowerMizer [...]
[...] [...]
I heard this was the best temporary solution to the stutter issue but i installed the latest 197.16 driver and am having the registery not found issue. any idea on when your next update will be?
Hi there,
Please, take a look at the FAQ, as most common problems are explained there. If you are still having problems, send me the debug file created with the app through the “Problems?” button and I’ll take a look at it.
The app is working fine with 197.16 as far as I know, so it must be an isolated problem with your registry.
It says it cannot locate any nvidia reg keys. Uptodate nvidia drivers are installed. I am on acer laptop 5920G with 8600M GT using nvidia’s own drivers (not acer’s modified drivers). So what am i supposed to do now? THX.
Hi there,
Please, read the FAQ. It this does not solve it for you, feel free to send me the debug info to take a look, because I am on the same laptop, with the same video card, and it works perfectly.
THX. For you replay. It only had to be run as admin. That was all. Maybe you add a (big visual) hint
THX for your software!
OMG!
How many times I had problems with the nvidia drivers for my Toshiba laptop powered by a GeForce 8700M GT… I cannot believe this is over. You did it! Bravo!
You solved a problem I had for months, always having BSOD with the famous nvlddmkm.sys.
I did not have not even a single BSOD for the last 8 days!!! Again, Great job!
Greetings from Paris, France.
[...] man Videos auch im 2d-Modus kucken. Bei HD-Beschleunigung taktet er allerdings noch auf 383MHz. PowerMizer Manager | Some More Bytes __________________ <sig> [...]
[...] [...]
Am using PM 0.95. Awhile back, we discussed PM’s inability to read powermizer settings on first start. It was decided that there was a glitch in the reg settings and to fix by deleting and recreating settings. This has been successful. Now that my laptop’s video drivers have been updated over the existing drivers using a modded inf file, it has again become necessary to delete existing settings and recreate them… just thought you’d like to know… cheers!
Hi there.
The official NVidia drivers do not provide the necessary registry entries to control the powermizer behaviour manually. So there’s no way that Powermizer Manager can read them on the first start. That’s why the “Create Settings” is there.
Every new installation/update of the drivers, will wipe the old registry values, and add the new ones (the official ones) so, of course, you will need to re-create them again, as your driver installer had deleted them. Sorry, but nothing that I can’t do about it.
Thanks for the feedback.
Hey there!
Thanks for providing a tool to change Performance Modes/PowerMizer without doing a reboot (Rivatuner doesn’t offer to reload the driver on my W7 installation anymore).
Overall it seems to work flawless. It allows me to force a fixed clock-rate whenever I need to use professional audio applications (DPC problems with NVidia’s 2D mode on Macbook Pro). Furthermore it allows to use a lower performance mode when using two displays at once (NVidia driver forces *maximum* clock-rates in this case).
Only grief: Needs to be set to run “As Administrator” via compatibility settings (no “Run as Administrator” on right-click of the Start menu icon). Neither allows to detect nor create the necessary registry keys when not run as Administrator (not even the ones created by itself).
Overall there are a bit too many dialogs to click on when you want to apply changes (1. Confirm Administrator rights, 2. Click “Instant Apply”, 3. Confirm Registry changes, 4. Confirm “Instant Apply” dialog). Please provide an option to apply settings without the safety dialogs.
Thanks and all the best! ;]
Hi,
The 0.96 version will partially solve that. Now there’s no need to manually set the flag “Run as administrator”, as when you launch the app, it will automatically ask for arministrator privileges.
However, the only way to avoid this, and thus the dialog excess when applying changes, is to disable Windows User Account Control. By design in modern Windows versions, an app cannot touch this area of the registry unless the user gives access to it (or the UAC is disabled).
Hi,
the UAC part is no problem (I can always chose to turn that off), but PowerMizer Manager does not allow to turn off the safety dialogs.
So at the moment you have to click two additional dialogs to confirm the changes even when you know that it works without problems (1. Confirm Registry changes, 2. confirm Instant Apply).
I would love to have these removed optionally, because it just works as expected here (no idea why Rivatuner removed the Reload driver function).
Ok. I write it down for the next version.
Thanks for the feedback.
Thanks alot for both the application and the support!
You got it in 0.98. Insane Instant Apply!
Great tool…
Just wondering if there are any plans to implement tools to adjust the sensitivity of the mode switching. That is, how much load you have to put on the card before it clocks up to max performance.
The current nvidia drivers show very inconsitent behaviour – When browsing in IE a load of 5-10 % in low perfomance mode (eg scrolling a Google search page) is enough to push the clocks to max. When using photoshop (large image processing for instance) the graphics card will chug along at low power with no performance loss and spiking to 60-70 % load without changing modes. To me, this is crazy behaviour!
Not sure if it is possible to control this at a registry level. It is possibly controlled at the driver level since previous driver versions (~185) did not have this problem – exhibiting much more logical mode switching behaviour (and saving a huge amount of heat output in the process).
Thanks
AFAIK there’s no way to do that at registry level, and there’s nothing about it in the official NVIDIA documentation, so unless someone comes with an unofficial API documentation, we’ll probably won’t have this kind of tools.
I have some idea on how to point you to towards teh-right direction to resolve the 4th profile issue.I wasn`t aware of it`s actual presence untill I started to fiddle with the NVidia`s overclocking utility – “NVidia System Performance” (a part of the NV`s “System Tools” package). After installing this, I`ve noticed some major changes in the registry. I had not the time to track them further down to the detail, so this is really just a my common sense.. I`m sure, little reverse engineering may help you find some more facts about this. I`m pretty sure, there`s no source code of the NVidia System Performance utility public availiable.
+1
Hi there, I’ve been some time out.
I am really interested in this information. It could lead to a better and more powerful application.
If you’re still interested in giving a hand, contact me through the contact form with your your email an we’ll talk.
Thanks a lot.
for some reason which i choose to back up the settings i name the file and save it but it does not save i can not find the file
otherwise great stuff!
First notice about this. You must be doing something wrong.
Do you have the last version of the app?
Is the application running with administrator privileges?
Thank you so much for this application. On battery with recent drivers and this program I get more than extra hour of operating time. Thank you thank you thank you..
Thank you so much for this! I have a 8600M GT GPU and it randomly clocks down AND stuck at low power 3D profile during time of stress(read: gaming). The temperature never exceeds 75 degrees Celsius so I don’t think it’s heat-related.
Anyway, before were I to get back to my high 3D profile again I had to reboot, now I can just use the instant reboot to do it!
It would be great if you are able to tell me how to let it stay in 3D high power full time though….
I’ve Disabled the overheat slowdown, however this behaviour remains.
Anyway, thanks to you at least I don’t have to reboot everytime this happens!
First, let me express my appreciation for this wonderful piece of software, as it offers far more options than a default driver install will provide. However, I do have an outstanding issue, which appears not to be specific to the latest version of this software. As Patrick detailed in his post back in April, I have having the same problem.
“I have a problem. The fixed performance level mode works, but throttle mode doesn’t exactly. When I had “on battery” set to the lowest profile and throttle turned on for “on ac adapter”, with the ac adapter it was just stuck on the lowest stage. Then when I set AC to fixed medium and battery to throttle, I noticed that on battery it would only throttle to medium (but important to note that it did throttle.)”
Was a fix to this issue ever introduced? It seems as though the setting for either AC Adapter or Battery is bound to the converse selection. For example:
1) If “Auto Throttle” is selected for both AC Adapter and Battery, the expected Adaptive clock speed behavior is produced.
2) If Battery is set to ‘Fixed Performance Mode’ at Min. Perf / Max. PowerSave and AC Adapter is set to ‘Auto Throttle’, then during AC, the GPU will not clock beyond the first or lowest power state.
3) If Battery is set to ‘Fixed Performance Mode’ at Med. Perf. / Med. PowerSave and AC Adapter is set to ‘Auto Throttle’, the GPU will engage Adaptive clock speed, but will not exceed the second or medium power state.
4) If Battery is set to ‘Fixed Performance Mode’ at Max. Perf. / Min. PowerSave and AC Adapter is set to ‘Auto Throttle’, the GPU will engage Adaptive clock speed, but will not exceed the third or highest power state.
I have been able to reproduce this behavior with various drivers, while ensuring to clean up my registry (both driver and PowerMizer-related entries) for each test. Basically, I would like to utilize a Fixed Performance State for Battery, and Auto Throttle for AC adapter, but am unable to achieve this with version 0.98. I am willing to send any debug information or any other details to aid you should you desire to help me resolve this issue.
After rereading my comment, I noticed that the fourth case technically produces the appropriate behavior. Cases 2 and 3 are the relevant combinations that clearly exhibit the problematic behavior that I earlier described (at least for my system).
For further clarification, I have used PowerMizer Manager v0.98 with an NVIDIA Quadro NVS 3100m with drivers 189.74 and 198.05, and have observed identical behavior.
Hi,
For some reason, I couldn’t replicate this bug when Patrick noted it. I checked it again, and it should be solved in 0.99.
I’d appreciate if you could confirm that 0.99 has the expected behavior.
Thanks for the feedback.
Thank you for the quick response. Testing PowerMizer Manager v0.99, I can confirm that the bug has been fixed, for both Case 2 and Case 3. Auto Throttle now works like a charm and is no longer bound to a fixed performance state.
PowerMizer Manager now works perfectly for my setup, and I appreciate your time and effort spent to improve this already great software. Thank you and best regards.
You are the most amazing person ever! Well, except my mom maybe
My fan was constantly spinning up and I found no way to downclock my gpu. Then I found your tool. You really saved my day! NVIDIA Laptop @ Win7 finally working nice and quiet like it used to back on XP. You should really try to sell this to nvidia! Wait… maybe not. Just put up a donate button
Thank you very much!
To the person who maintains this program — you are seriously a rockstar. Your program has been unbelievable.
I have recently been running into an error. For 3-4 weeks, the program was working like a charm. I have a laptop and it did a magnificent job keeping the gpu cool when I put it at the lowest fixed performance level. However, for some reason, recently I noticed when I watch a video on youtube my gpu automatically goes up to medium fixed performance level. I’ve been using GPU-Z to track the performance level. The weird thing is, once I close the video, the card goes back to the lowest fixed performance. I tried to download the latest update and it continues to do this. Are there any suggestions that might fix this?
Thanks again for making this program, it really is an unbelievable idea.
Hi there,
In recent versions NVidia drivers handled the video playing with a different throttling profiles than the 2D and 3D acceleration called Nvidia Purevideo Technology. As far as I know this behavior can’t be controlled through registry tweaking, so there’s nothing much to do there.
In recent flash versions, the video playing has gained GPU acceleration, and in case of Nvidia rigs, that means that flash video playing will make (probably) use of this Purevideo Technology, thus making Nvidia Powermizer manager unable to manage the power states. Hope this helps.
Wow, that makes a lot of sense actually. I did upload the latest version of flash player around the time this started happening. Do you think downgrading the version of flash player, and/or using an older driver for my video card will remedy this issue?
Thanks so much for your smart and quick reply. Your help is really awesome!
I can’t help you there. You’ll need to try different combinations of drivers and flash player versions to achieve this result.
Do you have an option in the flash config menu (right click over a flash video/object>Settings) to enable/disable hw accel? Maybe that or any other tweak to disable hw accel on flash can help.