"Overly-configurable" GUI Java frontend to nvidia-smi for those (like me) who can't install NVidia's nvtop
(e.g. with error nvtop : Depends: libnvidia-compute-418 but it is not going to be installed).
It will spawn an nvidia-smi process, leveraging the --query-gpu=... and --loop-ms=... parameters to parse its ouput to nicer, customizable graphs.
It is configurable through an nvtop.properties file to spawn graphs and map specific GPU queries to graphs (up to 2 queries per graph: one left and one right).
The release contains a runnable jar compatible with Java 14 and up. Note that the code itself is just 5 files and doesn't use fancy features above Java 8 so it could be easily recompiled for Java 8.
The nvtop.properties file contains the whole configuration.
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
graph.duration |
The total graphed time, in seconds, from right (most recent measures) to left (oldest measures). |
graph.refresh |
Trigger a measure every number of millisecond. |
graph.ticks.time |
If > 0, display timestamp ticks on the graph every number of seconds, with corresponding timestamp text |
graph.ticks.time.format |
The time format to display timestamp. It follows Java SimpleDateFormat format.E.g. HH:mm:ss to display 14:33:31 or HH:mma to display 2:33PM. |
graph.ticks.majors |
Number of major divisions on the Y axis (e.g. 5 will divide into 5 sections, 20% each).Lines will be plain. |
graph.ticks.minors |
Number of minor divisions on the Y axis. Should be greater than majors (e.g. 10 will divide into 10 sections, 10% each).Lines will be dashed. |
graph.background.panel |
Background color of all graphs' outside area (the window background basically). |
graph.title.font |
The font for all graphs titles, as per Java Font.decode() format. |
graph.grid |
All graphs are positioned on a grid with this many rows and columns. Format is <rows>,<columns> (e.g. 3,2 to display 3 rows and 2 columns). |
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
graph.ticks.color |
Default tick lines color, as per Java Color.decode() format.E.g. #ff0000 is pure red. |
graph.background |
Background color for the graphing area. |
Graph panels are defined by series of graph.<n>.xxx properties.
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
graph.<n>.title |
Graph title, displayed on top. |
graph.<n>.background |
Background color for the graphing area. Overrides the default graph.background property. |
graph.<n>.ticks.color |
Tick lines color. Overrides the default graph.ticks.color property. |
Graph panels can display two graphs: left and right, that are configured through the graph.<n>.<left|right>.xxx properties.
A panel doesn't need to specify both left or right (hereafter refered to as pos), but at least one (obviously).
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
graph.<n>.<pos>.query |
GPU query to graph (see "GPU queries" below). |
graph.<n>.<pos>.title |
Name of the series. |
graph.<n>.<pos>.min |
Minimum value for the series. |
graph.<n>.<pos>.max |
Maximum value for the series. |
graph.<n>.<pos>.unit |
Unit for the value. |
graph.<n>.<pos>.color |
Color used to draw the series. |
So you can configure either a dark theme (as above) or a light one:
If no nvtop.properties file is found in the working directory, a default one will be created with a single graph showing GPU and memory usage for 1 minute, refreshing every second:
graph.refresh=1000
graph.duration=60
graph.1.title=System
graph.1.left.title=GPU
graph.1.left.query=utilization.gpu
graph.1.left.min=0
graph.1.left.max=100
graph.1.left.unit=%
graph.1.right.title=RAM
graph.1.right.query=memory.used
graph.1.right.min=0
graph.1.right.max=8192
graph.1.right.unit=MiB
First, run the following command line to get the list of available queries for your system (note to Windows users, you might need to add nvidia-smi.exe directory to Windows %PATH%:
nvidia-smi --help-query-gpu
That will show you the list of supported queries you can try to graph. N.B. that not all of them actually return values, it depends on the NVidia drivers, so it is better to test the output to make sure you don't have any N/A values so you know which query will work and which won't:
$ nvidia-smi --format=csv,noheader,nounits --loop-ms=1000 --query-gpu=timestamp,utilization.gpu,utilization.memory,memory.used,fan.speed
2021/09/06 15:31:25.590, 82, 14, 2890, [N/A]
2021/09/06 15:31:26.591, 64, 24, 2890, [N/A]
2021/09/06 15:31:27.592, 71, 24, 2890, [N/A]
(here fan.speed is not usable).