[Tutorial] RivaTuner Overclock+Fan profiles - Overclock.net

kromar · 09-06-09

this is a tutorial for RivaTuner 2.24b where i show you how to set up different profiles for the core/shader/memory clocks and the fan.
my GPU runs really hot with stock clocks and fan settings so i looked for a way to clock down the core/shader/memory when my card was idle and RivaTuner turns out to be a fantastic tool to do that.

so enough talking lets get to it

OC Profiles

first we do some changes in the "settings" tab so RivaTuner starts with windows, just activate "Run at Windows startup" and "send to tray".

after that we do some advanced changes to make sure all the profiles work correctly.
the pictures should pretty much be self explaining, just right click on "EnablePerfLevelForcing" and select the yellow bulp.

same thing for "MaxClockLimit" and "MinClockLimit"

here you force it to work with the current NVIDIA driver that you have installed, if you update your driver you have to change this entry!

now lets create some profiles

go to the Main tab and select the System settings, which will pop up a new window

1. mark the checkbox
2. set your clocks to the desired idle clocks. you should test these clocks for stability the same way you do for high gpu clocks, otherwise you will get some problems.
3. apply the settings
4. save the profile
5. save these as startup settings

also save your high clocks as profile

now we need a way for the software to know when the profiles are needed,
there are 2 ways to do this.
we can do this by the Video Memory usage or the hardware acceleration.
i recommend using the Video Memory usage since this doesn't need the RivaTuner server to run and will works for every application. i had some 64bit games which did not trigger the hardware acceleration so i had to manually change to the oc profile, this will not happen when doing it with Video Memory.
there might be some cards where its not possible to read the memory usage so i will describe both methods.

so under the Main tab choose Hardware monitor

Hardware Acceleration method
click on the setup button at the bottom and activate the "Hardware acceleration" in the list.
if you also want to set up new fan profiles it might be handy to enable the "Reference fan duty cycle"

now you have the Hardware acceleration graph in the Hardware monitor, but for it to work we need to enable the RivaTuner server, click on the small icon

this is the RivaTuner server window, all you need to do is set it to Start with windows andminimize it again. i dont need any display output so i disable "Show on screen"...

now enter the name of the profile and select the oc profile for it

do the same thing for both the profiles you created earlier, it should look similar to this:

now go to the Scheduler tab and hit the green cross again, here we tell the profiles when they should be activated.
i want the idle profile activated at startup:

create a second task again for the idle profile and set the values as in the picture.
you see we use the Hardware acceleration here to change the profile.

same thing for the oc profile

Video Memory method
so to activate the Video Memory sensor you need to activate the VidMem.dll plugin and then check the Videomemory usage in the "Hardware monitoring setup"

now you should have the video memory graph in your hardware monitor.

now go to the Launcher tab and click on the green cross at the bottom left, this will pop up a new window, select "Regular item" and hit ok.

now enter the name of the profile and select the oc profile for it

do the same thing for both the profiles you created earlier, it should look similar to this:

now go to the Scheduler tab and hit the green cross again, here we tell the profiles when they should be activated.
i want the idle profile activated at startup:

now we set up when the idle profile should kick in, here you nedd to set the memory usage to a pretty low value like 10

and again for the oc profile, now here it gets a bit tricky, for me a value of 60 works fine but you might need to adjust this value a bit, just keep the hardware monitor open when playing a game or anything else and look when it kicks in and adjust it accordingly. you might not want to have it active when watching a movie which uses about 50vm...

now go back to the launcher and double click on the idle profile if thats not tha one thats active, you notice the clocks change when you do so.
if you now start a 3d app it will automaticly change to your oc profile and when you exit it will go back to the idle profile.
i use FurMark to test if it works, furmark is also very usefull for creating fan profiles;D

FAN Profiles
you see my fan is increasing a bit slow and it takes a long time for it to drop again and thats not how i like it:O
again we change a setting in the Power user tab for the fan profiles

then go to the Main tab and open the system settings again

1. go to the Fan tab
2. switch to direct control
3. change the slider to the speed you want, i will use a 50,60,70,80,90,100 profile
4. apply it
5. save the profile
return to 3. and continue create as many fan steps as you want.

then go to the Launcher tab again and add all the fan profiles you created

this is how my launchers look after that

then we go to the Scheduler tab and set up all the fan profiles. first choose one for the startup

now you need 2 tasks for each profile, one will tell it when its kicking in when the temperatures go up, the other when the temperatures go down.

you might wanna write down at what temperature each profile should kick in, here is how i set it up:

profile: 50 60 70 80 90 100
Temps: 50° 60° 70° 75° 80° 85°
you will use the temp values in the "threshold field.

this is how the "UP" profiles should be configured

this is how the "DOWN" profiles should be configured
and you see that i have a up and a down tasks for every temperature exept the highest(fan100)

now you should test if everything works with furmark, this is how it looks in the hardware monitor if everything is working

if you have any questions feel free to reply here, i know the tutorial needs a bit optimizing but it has to do for today

ckybam3 · 09-07-09

This should probably be moved as riva tuner is for all graphics cards. Also did you make sure there was not already a guide for this? I know there are many guides for this program out on the interweb already. Either way good job mate, like all the pics.

Ghostleader · 09-07-09

Nice work

Celeras · 09-12-09

Isn't it recommended to keep Core/Shader clocks and Memory clocks OC'd at a 1:1 ratio? Couldnt help but notice youre pushing your core slighty harder then your memory ;o

kromar · 09-13-09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celeras

Isn't it recommended to keep Core/Shader clocks and Memory clocks OC'd at a 1:1 ratio? Couldnt help but notice youre pushing your core slighty harder then your memory ;o

dont know, why would that be?

EDIT: i googled to find out more about the linked core/shader but couldnt find any link that said it needs to be linked, looks like there are many who are to lazy to test each clock for stability so they let it linked to have a quick overclock....
i will do some crysis benchmarks with linked and unlinked clocks to see if there is a performance difference and report back when thats done...

kromar · 09-17-09

since i experienced some problems with 64bit apps which did not trigger the Hardware acceleration level i started to look for new ways to trigger the clock profiles, and it looks like i just found a better way (Videomemory usage) which would even allow more than 2 clock profiles and does not need the Riva tuner statistics server to run

to activate the Video memory sensor reading, open Riva Tuners Hardware Monitor and click setup, there click on the plugins button and activate the VidMem.dll, hit ok.
then check that "VideoMemory usage" is activated in the Hardware monitoring.
after that you can create schedulers to replace the hardware acceleration.

im still testing what a good limit for the idle profile is but i think everything below 50mb will do it for me. this could vary from system and applications used so you might wanna keep the Hardware monitor open for some time to see how much memory different applications use to optimize it for your use.

PizzaMan · 09-26-09

Quote:

Originally Posted by kromar

since i experienced some problems with 64bit apps which did not trigger the Hardware acceleration level i started to look for new ways to trigger the clock profiles, and it looks like i just found a better way (Videomemory usage) which would even allow more than 2 clock profiles and does not need the Riva tuner statistics server to run

to activate the Video memory sensor reading, open Riva Tuners Hardware Monitor and click setup, there click on the plugins button and activate the VidMem.dll, hit ok.
then check that "VideoMemory usage" is activated in the Hardware monitoring.
after that you can create schedulers to replace the hardware acceleration.

im still testing what a good limit for the idle profile is but i think everything below 50mb will do it for me. this could vary from system and applications used so you might wanna keep the Hardware monitor open for some time to see how much memory different applications use to optimize it for your use.

+1
Great thread

You should update OP with pics of the videomemory usage.