nvidia binary driver leaks vram like crazy

[Tessa]

Using the nvidia-smi tool, you can see how much VRAM the binary driver is using for the card. However, with the current latest driver in Ubuntu 14.10, the results aren't good. Just using desktop apps (no OpenGL apart from what Unity and Chrome naturally use), and the driver has consumed over a GB of VRAM:

graeme@galvatron:~⟫ sudo nvidia-smi
[sudo] password for graeme:
Fri Jan 9 11:58:06 2015
+------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 331.38 Driver Version: 331.38 |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| 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 570 Off | 0000:01:00.0 N/A | N/A |
| 40% 43C N/A N/A / N/A | 1047MiB / 1279MiB | N/A Default |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Compute processes: GPU Memory |
| GPU PID Process name Usage |
|=============================================================================|
| 0 Not Supported |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

However, you can tell that this is caused by some sort of driver leak, since if you jump to the fb console with ctl-alt-f1, and then alt-tab back to X, the VRAM usage drops dramatically:

graeme@galvatron:~⟫ sudo nvidia-smi
Fri Jan 9 11:58:27 2015
+------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 331.38 Driver Version: 331.38 |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| 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 570 Off | 0000:01:00.0 N/A | N/A |
| 40% 45C N/A N/A / N/A | 483MiB / 1279MiB | N/A Default |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Compute processes: GPU Memory |
| GPU PID Process name Usage |
|=============================================================================|
| 0 Not Supported |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

The upshot of this is that, right now, I have to dump to the fb console and back before using any OpenGL apps, or they often fail with OpenGL memory allocation errors.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.10
Package: nvidia-331 331.38-0ubuntu7
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.16.0-25.33-generic 3.16.7
Uname: Linux 3.16.0-25-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.14.7-0ubuntu8
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Fri Jan 9 12:01:56 2015
SourcePackage: nvidia-graphics-drivers-331
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
modified.conffile..etc.modprobe.d.nvidia.331.hybrid.conf: [deleted]

[dino99 (9d9)]

This version has expired

[Tessa (unit3)]

Just retested on a fresh install of 15.04 x64 with the nvidia-346 drivers, problem still exists. In between the two nvidia-smi runs shown, I just switched to the text console with ctl-alt-f1, and then switched back to X.

graeme@galvatron:~⟫ nvidia-smi
Tue Aug 11 15:48:00 2015
+------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 346.59 Driver Version: 346.59 |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| 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 960 Off | 0000:01:00.0 N/A | N/A |
| 0% 58C P8 N/A / N/A | 1148MiB / 2047MiB | N/A Default |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes: GPU Memory |
| GPU PID Type Process name Usage |
|=============================================================================|
| 0 C+G Not Supported |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
graeme@galvatron:~⟫ nvidia-smi
Tue Aug 11 15:48:08 2015
+------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 346.59 Driver Version: 346.59 |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| 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 960 Off | 0000:01:00.0 N/A | N/A |
| 0% 59C P0 N/A / N/A | 526MiB / 2047MiB | N/A Default |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes: GPU Memory |
| GPU PID Type Process name Usage |
|=============================================================================|
| 0 C+G Not Supported |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[darthusul (darthusul)]

I am also experiencing this issue, running Vivid on an amd64, using the nvidia 340.76 drivers which are not as recent as the 346 drivers but are the recommended drivers for my card:

~$ sudo ubuntu-drivers devices
== /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:04.0/0000:03:00.0 ==
modalias : pci:v000010DEd00000400sv00001682sd00002280bc03sc00i00
manual_install: True
vendor : NVIDIA Corporation
model : G84 [GeForce 8600 GTS]
driver : nvidia-340 - distro non-free recommended
driver : nvidia-304 - distro non-free
driver : xserver-xorg-video-nouveau - distro free builtin
driver : nvidia-304-updates - distro non-free
driver : nvidia-340-updates - distro non-free