[elrepo] Nvidia Driver Performance: El Repo vs. NVidia's .run file

[Phil Perry]

On 25/04/16 15:06, EBradley at williams-int.com wrote:
> Hello,
>

Hi Evan,

>
>
> I've just recently begun using the Nvidia drivers from el repo installed
> via yum as opposed to the manually installed .run packages downloaded
> from Nvidia.com for our engineering workstations running RHEL 6. While I
> love the fact that the el repo drivers do not need to be reinstalled
> after every kernel upgrade, one of my users has just shown me a valid
> case in which the performance of the el repo Nvidia drivers is different
> from the .run package.
>
>
>
> First, some basic info regarding the environment:
>
>
>
>
>
> User's System:  Dell Precision T7810
>
> Video Card:  Nvidia Quadro K620
>
> OS: RHEL 6.6
>
> Kernel:  2.6.32-573.22.1.el6.x86_64
>
> Driver - el repo (361.42): kmod-nvidia.x86-64 nvidia-x11-drv.x86_64
> nvidia-detect.x86_64
>
> Driver - Nvidia.com: NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-361.42.run
>
> Nouveau driver - blacklisted in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
>
>
>
>
>
> I'll try to be descriptive of the situation without being long-winded:
>
>
>
> When viewing the results of an analysis in Ansys Mechanical with the el
> repo driver, a part is displayed and can be manipulated at will when
> viewing the general results. If, however, the user selects one of the
> 'Total Deformation' selections within the results tree, the part
> disappears from the Mechanical window. Conversely, when the el repo
> drivers are uninstalled and the Nvidia.com driver is installed from the
> .run package, the Total Deformation part is displayed as expected,
> showing the regions of varying color gradients depicting the areas of
> more/less deformation over the surface of the part. I was able to
> reproduce this behavior on my test machine, a Dell Precision T5500 with
> an Nvidia Quadro K600.
>
>
>
> I certainly don't want to come off like I'm blaming the el repo driver
> or anything. Rather, I'm interested to know if anyone has experienced
> anything similar (I've checked the previous year of posts and will keep
> working backward) and also if there's something I may have missed or
> misconfigured when installing the drivers via el repo/yum vs. manually
> installing the .run package. Basically, did I goof or is there a valid
> difference between the el repo drivers and the .run package from
> Nvidia.com?
>
>

Not at all, it certainly sounds like you may have identified a valid 
bug. The intention is that the drivers should behave identically, if 
they are not then that would indicate a bug in our packaging.

At this point I have no idea as to why that might be, so lets start with 
Manuel's suggestions in his previous replies and see if that gives us 
any clues.

>
> Thanks in advance, and I am happy to provide more detail/logs/answer
> questions/etc. And my apologies for any legal jargon that is appended to
> this message, it is automatically-generated and outside of my control.
>
>
>
>
>
> Evan
>