An author called "2PKAQWTUQM2Q7DJG" (likely not a real name) has published a fascinating little article today on his/her WordPress blog entitled, "Overclocking Tools for NVIDIA GPUs Suck. I Made My Own". What it contains is a full account of the process of creating an overclocking tool beyond the constraints of common utilities such as MSI Afterburner.
By probing MSI's OC utility using Ollydbg (an x86 "assembler level analysing debugger") the author was able to track down how Afterburner was working.
“nvapi.dll” definitely gets loaded here using LoadLibrary/GetModuleHandle. We’re on the right track. Now where exactly is that lib used? … That’s simple, with the program running and the realtime graph disabled (it polls NvAPI constantly adding noise to the mass of API calls). we place a memory breakpoint on the .Text memory segment of the NVapi.dll inside MSI Afterburner’s process… Then we set the sliders in the MSI tool to get some negligible GPU underclock and hit the “apply” button. It breaks inside NvAPI… magic!
After further explaining the process and his/her source code for an overclocking utility, the user goes on to show the finished product in the form of a command line utility.
There is a link to the finished version of this utility at the end of the article, as well as the entire process with all source code. It makes for an interesting read (even for the painfully inept at programming, such as myself), and the provided link to download this mysterious overclocking utility (disguised as a JPG image file, no less) makes it both tempting and a little dubious. Does this really allow overclocking any NVIDIA GPU, including mobile? What could be the harm in trying?? In all seriousness however since some of what was seemingly uncovered in the article is no doubt proprietary, how long will this information be available?
It would probably be wise to follow the link to the WordPress page ASAP!
There already is a
There already is a lightweight (but closed source) NVAPI overclocking (and game profile editing) tool called NVIDIA Inspector, which can create commandline shortcuts for overclocking, too.
http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/nvidia-inspector-download.html
One of the barriers to using
One of the barriers to using Linux full time is the lack of overclocking software, so an open source alternative would be really nice. Even more so if it’s a more powerful tool.
When this has voltage and
When this has voltage and power limit support, I’m dropping MSI Afterburner and using this. People with aircooled cards should probably still use Afterburner because of custom fan curve support.
“What could be the harm in
“What could be the harm in trying??” Instability, and maaaaaaaybe the possibility of damage. By manually tweaking individual parameters rather than passing those parameters through the validation and cross-checking (e.g. “don’t go below frequency X at voltage Y or component Z will overcurrent and blow”) you take all responsibility for checking your numbers onto yourself.
OK, disregard that. Looking
OK, disregard that. Looking closer at the program, this is less bypassing the normal overclocking process, and more revere engineering the API every other program uses in order to avoid the god-awful UIs everyone is using. The side-effect of allowing mobile GPU overclocking is the discovery that the GPUs or drivers are not doing anything to block overclocking, and that it simply requires the makers of the overclocking tool frontends to pinky-swear not to.
tl;dr you’re losing quite a bit of handholding, but you probably won;t break anything permanently
Also I was being facetious 🙂
Also I was being facetious 🙂
Already 404. Did anyone get
Already 404. Did anyone get it?
It’s still up.
It’s still up.
https://archive.is/eB7OO
https://archive.is/eB7OO
someone plz make amd version
someone plz make amd version
I’d love to see a version of
I’d love to see a version of this program with a nice, simple GUI. If it gets voltage limit, power limit, and fan curve support, that would be even better.
This is identical to Nvidia
This is identical to Nvidia Inspector.
just tried this on samsung
just tried this on samsung rf710 overclock.exe 250 250 and BAM black screen. ah sheit then bam MAX OVERCLOCK!!!!!!!!! might want to take out if(-250000 <= userfreq && userfreq <= 250000) and replace with if(-250000 <= userfreq && userfreq <= WHATEVERTHEFUCKIWANT). this was worth a beer in my books.
turns out nvidia inspector
turns out nvidia inspector can do that too 🙂 with sliders and junk. why is msi afterburner/precision x so highly rated?
Funny beceause this code is
Funny beceause this code is only for x86 and nvidia inspector is also made for x64. Are there some advantages of this code instead of nvidia inspector?