GPU rendering with gtx-970 on ubuntu

Support Technical Support
21

$ sudo dpkg -l | grep -i cuda

ii cuda 6.5-19 amd64 CUDA meta-package
ii cuda-6-5 6.5-19 amd64 CUDA 6.5 meta-package
ii cuda-command-line-tools-6-5 6.5-19 amd64 CUDA command-line tools
ii cuda-core-6-5 6.5-19 amd64 CUDA core tools
ii cuda-cublas-6-5 6.5-19 amd64 CUBLAS native runtime libraries
ii cuda-cublas-dev-6-5 6.5-19 amd64 CUBLAS native dev links, headers
ii cuda-cudart-6-5 6.5-19 amd64 CUDA Runtime native Libraries
ii cuda-cudart-dev-6-5 6.5-19 amd64 CUDA Runtime native dev links, headers
ii cuda-cufft-6-5 6.5-19 amd64 CUFFT native runtime libraries
ii cuda-cufft-dev-6-5 6.5-19 amd64 CUFFT native dev links, headers
ii cuda-curand-6-5 6.5-19 amd64 CURAND native runtime libraries
ii cuda-curand-dev-6-5 6.5-19 amd64 CURAND native dev links, headers
ii cuda-cusparse-6-5 6.5-19 amd64 CUSPARSE native runtime libraries
ii cuda-cusparse-dev-6-5 6.5-19 amd64 CUSPARSE native dev links, headers
ii cuda-documentation-6-5 6.5-19 amd64 CUDA documentation
ii cuda-driver-dev-6-5 6.5-19 amd64 CUDA Driver native dev stub library
ii cuda-drivers 343.19-1 amd64 CUDA Driver meta-package
ii cuda-license-6-5 6.5-19 amd64 CUDA licenses
ii cuda-misc-headers-6-5 6.5-19 amd64 CUDA misc headers
ii cuda-npp-6-5 6.5-19 amd64 NPP native runtime libraries
ii cuda-npp-dev-6-5 6.5-19 amd64 NPP native dev links, headers
ii cuda-repo-ubuntu1404-6-5-prod 6.5-19 amd64 CUDA repo configuration files.
ii cuda-runtime-6-5 6.5-19 amd64 CUDA Runtime 6.5 meta-package
ii cuda-samples-6-5 6.5-19 amd64 CUDA example applications
ii cuda-toolkit-6-5 6.5-19 amd64 CUDA Toolkit 6.5 meta-package
ii cuda-visual-tools-6-5 6.5-19 amd64 CUDA visual tools
rc libcublas5.5:amd64 5.5.22-3ubuntu1 amd64 NVIDIA CUDA BLAS runtime library
rc libcuda1-331 331.38-0ubuntu7.1 amd64 NVIDIA CUDA runtime library
ii libcuda1-343 343.19-0ubuntu1 amd64 NVIDIA CUDA runtime library
rc libcudart5.5:amd64 5.5.22-3ubuntu1 amd64 NVIDIA CUDA runtime library
rc libcufft5.5:amd64 5.5.22-3ubuntu1 amd64 NVIDIA CUDA FFT runtime library
rc libcufftw5.5:amd64 5.5.22-3ubuntu1 amd64 NVIDIA CUDA FFTW runtime library
rc libcuinj64-5.5:amd64 5.5.22-3ubuntu1 amd64 NVIDIA CUDA INJ runtime library (64-bit)
rc libcurand5.5:amd64 5.5.22-3ubuntu1 amd64 NVIDIA CUDA Random Numbers Generation runtime library
rc libcusparse5.5:amd64 5.5.22-3ubuntu1 amd64 NVIDIA CUDA Sparse Matrix runtime library
rc libnvvm2:amd64 5.5.22-3ubuntu1 amd64 NVIDIA CUDA Compiler NVVM runtime library

And to answer your remaining question:

I tried both versions (Official and Gooseberry) - no CUDA

22

You seem to have the files installed correctly.
You open the terminal inside the blender folder from buildbot and you run blender as superuser, for example:

gksudo ./blender

or where you have blender from buildbot:

gksudo /PATH_TO_BLENDER_HERE/blender

You tell me if in this way you can enable CUDA in Blender.

You have to see if CUDA is working well in your system, trying to run CUDA samples (p21, 6.3. Verify the Installation > 6.3.2 - 6.3.3):

Edit:
I really do not know if when you install CUDA from deb package, samples are already compiled and you can find there the binaries to run. Or if you must compile it with “make”.

23

Running blender with root privileges does not help either. Which means, there is something else not as it should be.

I’ll work my way through the PDF later today. Thank for your help so far.

24

Please, if you can not fix it, you open a detailed thread on the developer forum for Linux:
https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/board/98/linux/

25

It worked!!! :spin:

Here are the things I learned today:

Use CUDA 6.5 https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-downloads-geforce-gtx9xx - make sure that is says “CUDA 6.5 Production Release with Support for GeForce GTX9xx GPUs” (there is also a CUDA 6.5 without it).

I used the .deb file. Installing this deb file with

sudo dpkg -i cuda-repo-ubuntu1404-6-5-prod_6.5-19_amd64.deb

will only copy a handful of other packages onto the system, but it does not install them.

sudo apt-get update

will import them into the package system and

sudo apt-get install cuda

would install them (including the nvidia driver and the above mentioned nividia-modprobe utility).

The main problem in my case was the nvidia 343.22 driver that I had already installed via the xorg/edgers ppa. The CUDA package comes with its own driver (343.19). It appears that these two don’t mix.

Perhaps the installer of the CUDA package skipped that part because it saw a newer version, or it was the usual problem that you can’t replace something while you are still using it.

I had bring the system into a state without any nvidia driver (loging out, switching to a shell, stopping lightdm, rebooting) before I could remove the nvidia-343 driver from xorg/edgers.

Then the

sudo apt-get install cuda

did the rest, including updating the initfs which is used during booting.

I can confirm that only the development builds do support the GTX 970 in this configuration at the moment. 2.72b returns a black screen and an error message in the terminal. I’m rendering with the non-gooseberry version at the moment.

Thank you for help.

26

Good to know that it works for you.

I hope that in the next versions of Blender/nvidia/Ubuntu, all this be simpler for GTX 970/980, like is the case with previous graphics cards: Only installing the nvidia driver and downloading official Blender with precompiled CUDA Kernel (without installing CUDA Toolkit).