Delay in opening applications that use nvidia gpu on demand

[zimudec]

I have a laptop with a APU intel + dedicated Nvidia GTX 1650.

In version 0.8.4 of ubuntu-drivers-common, it worked perfect. In versions after this one, there were big freeze problems, app delays, boot delays, delays in shutting down the equipment. Over time they have been corrected until we reach the current 0.9.0.

In this version some small symptoms remain. I do not know the cause and if it is part of a potential problem. The symptoms are:

1- In on-demand mode, when opening certain applications that apparently use the nvidia gpu, for example: nvidia-settings, xfce-display-settings, lutris game settings, nvidia-smi, it takes a few seconds to open the app , and at that time the gpu overclocked and increased consumption for a few seconds. Then it goes back to normal. To replicate the problem again, I must wait 30-60 seconds after closing the app, and open an app again.

An example:

$ nvidia-smi dmon
# gpu   pwr gtemp mtemp    sm   mem   enc   dec  mclk  pclk
# Idx     W     C     C     %     %     %     %   MHz   MHz
    0     6    39     -     0     0     0     0  6000  1380
    0    14    40     -     0     0     0     0  6000  1380
    0    14    40     -     0     0     0     0  6000  1380
    0    14    40     -     0     0     0     0  6000  1380
    0    14    40     -     0     0     0     0  6000  1380
    0    14    40     -     0     0     0     0  6000  1380
    0    14    40     -     0     0     0     0  6000  1380
    0    14    40     -     0     0     0     0  6000  1380
    0    14    40     -     0     0     0     0  6000  1380
    0    14    40     -     0     0     0     0  6000  1380
    0    14    40     -     0     0     0     0  6000  1380
    0     4    40     -     0     0     0     0   405   360
    0     2    39     -     0     0     0     0   405   360
    0     2    39     -     0     0     0     0   405   300
    0     2    39     -     0     0     0     0   405   300
    0     2    39     -     0     0     0     0   405   300
    0     2    39     -     0     0     0     0   405   300
    0     2    39     -     0     0     0     0   405   300
    0     2    39     -     0     0     0     0   405   300
    0     1    39     -     0     0     0     0   405   300
    0     2    39     -     0     0     0     0   405   300
    0     1    39     -     0     0     0     0   405   300

2- Sometimes, when turning off the equipment, the distribution logo appears and stops for a few seconds before shutting down.

[tseliot]

I am not sure how ubuntu-drivers-common can affect that. On-demand mode means that we also enable RTD3 on Turing (or newer) GPUs. The lag you're seeing is probably because of the time it takes for the dGPU to be fully powered on. It could be a driver issue.

[zimudec]

it's strange. I update only ubuntu-drivers-common, but not the driver, and the problem starts.

I detected these problems a long time ago when upgrading from 0.8.4 to 0.8.6. Only from 0.8.6 to 0.9 the most serious problems have disappeared.

But yes, it seems that since version 0.8.6 the system has trouble turning on the GPU. At 0.8.4 it turned on immediately.

I've kept doing tests by updating only ubuntu-drivers-common and updating all packages including it, and then going back to the previous version using timeshift.