I want to run paraview on a discrete graphics card ( Nvidia 1080T ) in ubuntu 16.04

[slqingqing]

Paraview5.2 was installed in ubuntu 16.04, then I deployed the paraviewweb to use visualizer tool.
My computer have a discrete graphics card ( Nvidia 1080T ). I want to run the paraview on the GPU to accelerate. Therefore, how do I achieve the funtion?

[scottwittenburg]

@slqingqing What have you tried so far? Are you sure it's not working already? Usually if you just make sure the drivers for graphics card are installed, you should be all set.

Assuming the desktop version was installed, you can open the ParaView desktop app, go to the "Help" -> "About" menu, and then scroll down to find information about the OpenGL Vendor, Version, and Renderer. Let us know what you see.

[slqingqing]

@scottwittenburg

Assuming the desktop version was installed, you can open the ParaView desktop app, go to the "Help" -> "About" menu, and then scroll down to find information about the OpenGL Vendor, Version, and Renderer. Let us know what you see.

In the "About" menu, I saw "OpenGL Vendor -- VMware, Inc." "OpenGL Version -- 3.3 (Core Profile) Mesa 18.0.5" "OpenGL Renderer -- llvmpipe (LLVM 6.0, 256 bit)".

I installed Paraview 5.2 successfully and works well. After I started paraview 5.2, I input command "nvidia-smi" in terminal, I just saw a process "/usr/lib/xorg/Xorg" which was running. Thanks.

[scottwittenburg]

It looks like you're using VMWare, and I don't believe you will have success using your actual hardware graphics card in that environment.

The output of nvidia-smi should, indeed, be useful in ascertaining whether you're graphics card is set up properly with the correct drivers. In my case, I see this:

$ nvidia-smi
Tue Sep 25 09:47:58 2018       
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 384.130                Driver Version: 384.130                   |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name        Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
|   0  Quadro K2200        Off  | 00000000:04:00.0  On |                  N/A |
| 42%   51C    P0     2W /  39W |   1500MiB /  4041MiB |      0%      Default |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
                                                                               
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                       GPU Memory |
|  GPU       PID   Type   Process name                             Usage      |
|=============================================================================|
|    0      1527      G   /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg                           698MiB |
|    0      3850      G   compiz                                       369MiB |
|    0      4162      G   ...-token=12157C0DF86721126B3F4CFE29D7364C   191MiB |
|    0      6341      G   ...quest-channel-token=6694301248016639858   233MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

If you don't see something like that top part, then it's not finding your graphics hardware correctly.

[slqingqing]

@scottwittenburg Thanks for your help. I didn't install VMWare. My computer have only one operating system "Ubuntu 16.04".

[scottwittenburg]

Do you have the drivers for your graphics card installed? On Ubuntu 16.04, I have the nvidia-384 package installed (NVIDIA binary driver - version 384.130). Does your hardware show up when you do sudo lspci | grep -i vga?

[slqingqing]

@scottwittenburg Thanks very much.

1. input "top" in terminal
   4634 slice 20 0 1075664 219608 139320 S 0.3 1.3 0:00.89 paraview

2. input "sudo lspci | grep -i vga" in terminal

slice@slice-server:~$ sudo lspci | grep -i vga
[sudo] password for slice:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation Device 1b80 (rev a1)

3. input "nvidia-smi" in terminal

Fri Sep 28 09:33:02 2018
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 390.67 Driver Version: 390.67 |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU Name Persistence-M| Bus-Id Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan Temp Perf Pwr:Usage/Cap| Memory-Usage | GPU-Util Compute M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
| 0 GeForce GTX 1080 Off | 00000000:01:00.0 On | N/A |
| 23% 42C P8 9W / 180W | 155MiB / 8117MiB | 7% Default |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes: GPU Memory |
| GPU PID Type Process name Usage |
|=============================================================================|
| 0 1087 G /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg 153MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[scottwittenburg]

Does your computer have multiple graphics card? Like an onboard as well as the 1080? Is it perhaps running something like Optimus?

Also, can you run glxinfo and paste the output back here? Thanks.

[slqingqing]

Yes, my computer have two graphics card, one is integrated graphics card, the other is discrete graphics card (1080T). Thanks very much.

slice@slice-server:~$ glxinfo
name of display: :0
display: :0 screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes
server glx vendor string: SGI
server glx version string: 1.4
server glx extensions:
GLX_ARB_create_context, GLX_ARB_create_context_profile,
GLX_ARB_fbconfig_float, GLX_ARB_framebuffer_sRGB, GLX_ARB_multisample,
GLX_EXT_create_context_es2_profile, GLX_EXT_create_context_es_profile,
GLX_EXT_fbconfig_packed_float, GLX_EXT_framebuffer_sRGB,
GLX_EXT_import_context, GLX_EXT_libglvnd, GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap,
GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_MESA_copy_sub_buffer,
GLX_OML_swap_method, GLX_SGIS_multisample, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig,
GLX_SGIX_pbuffer, GLX_SGIX_visual_select_group, GLX_SGI_make_current_read
client glx vendor string: Mesa Project and SGI
client glx version string: 1.4
client glx extensions:
GLX_ARB_context_flush_control, GLX_ARB_create_context,
GLX_ARB_create_context_profile, GLX_ARB_create_context_robustness,
GLX_ARB_fbconfig_float, GLX_ARB_framebuffer_sRGB,
GLX_ARB_get_proc_address, GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_EXT_buffer_age,
GLX_EXT_create_context_es2_profile, GLX_EXT_create_context_es_profile,
GLX_EXT_fbconfig_packed_float, GLX_EXT_framebuffer_sRGB,
GLX_EXT_import_context, GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap, GLX_EXT_visual_info,
GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_INTEL_swap_event, GLX_MESA_copy_sub_buffer,
GLX_MESA_multithread_makecurrent, GLX_MESA_query_renderer,
GLX_MESA_swap_control, GLX_OML_swap_method, GLX_OML_sync_control,
GLX_SGIS_multisample, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig, GLX_SGIX_pbuffer,
GLX_SGIX_visual_select_group, GLX_SGI_make_current_read,
GLX_SGI_swap_control, GLX_SGI_video_sync
GLX version: 1.4
GLX extensions:
GLX_ARB_create_context, GLX_ARB_create_context_profile,
GLX_ARB_fbconfig_float, GLX_ARB_framebuffer_sRGB,
GLX_ARB_get_proc_address, GLX_ARB_multisample,
GLX_EXT_create_context_es2_profile, GLX_EXT_create_context_es_profile,
GLX_EXT_fbconfig_packed_float, GLX_EXT_framebuffer_sRGB,
GLX_EXT_import_context, GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap, GLX_EXT_visual_info,
GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_MESA_copy_sub_buffer,
GLX_MESA_multithread_makecurrent, GLX_MESA_query_renderer,
GLX_OML_swap_method, GLX_SGIS_multisample, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig,
GLX_SGIX_pbuffer, GLX_SGIX_visual_select_group, GLX_SGI_make_current_read
Extended renderer info (GLX_MESA_query_renderer):
Vendor: VMware, Inc. (0xffffffff)
Device: llvmpipe (LLVM 6.0, 256 bits) (0xffffffff)
Version: 18.0.5
Accelerated: no
Video memory: 15994MB
Unified memory: no
Preferred profile: core (0x1)
Max core profile version: 3.3
Max compat profile version: 3.0
Max GLES1 profile version: 1.1
Max GLES[23] profile version: 3.0
OpenGL vendor string: VMware, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: llvmpipe (LLVM 6.0, 256 bits)
OpenGL core profile version string: 3.3 (Core Profile) Mesa 18.0.5
OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 3.30
OpenGL core profile context flags: (none)
OpenGL core profile profile mask: core profile
OpenGL core profile extensions:
GL_AMD_conservative_depth, GL_AMD_draw_buffers_blend,
GL_AMD_seamless_cubemap_per_texture, GL_AMD_shader_stencil_export,
GL_AMD_shader_trinary_minmax, GL_AMD_vertex_shader_layer,
GL_AMD_vertex_shader_viewport_index, GL_ANGLE_texture_compression_dxt3,
GL_ANGLE_texture_compression_dxt5, GL_ARB_ES2_compatibility,

[slqingqing]

[slqingqing]

slice@slice-server:~$ glxinfo | grep OpenGL
OpenGL vendor string: VMware, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: llvmpipe (LLVM 6.0, 256 bits)
OpenGL core profile version string: 3.3 (Core Profile) Mesa 18.0.5
OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 3.30
OpenGL core profile context flags: (none)
OpenGL core profile profile mask: core profile
OpenGL core profile extensions:
OpenGL version string: 3.0 Mesa 18.0.5
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.30
OpenGL context flags: (none)
OpenGL extensions:
OpenGL ES profile version string: OpenGL ES 3.0 Mesa 18.0.5
OpenGL ES profile shading language version string: OpenGL ES GLSL ES 3.00
OpenGL ES profile extensions: