Nvidia Driver 510.39.01 Unlocks GPU System Processor Performance Enhancement

For the time being, 2022 Max-Q laptops and Enterprise GPUs are the only ones with this feature. In a stealth unveiling, Nvidia revealed a capability that has been buried in its enterprise and consumer GPUs since the Turing generation was introduced.

This piece of silicon, known as the GSP or GPU System Processor, shifts driver-related work from the CPU to the GPU, thereby enhancing performance and efficiency. It has now been officially unlocked for use with Nvidia's most recent drivers, according to the company. The feature is currently available if you have a qualified enterprise-class Nvidia GPU and the most recent Nvidia driver 510.39.01 installed on your computer. From the Turing-based Tesla T4 all the way up to Nvidia's A series, which includes the A100, A2, and A40, there is support for graphics processing units.

An Nvidia GPU is coupled with a GSP, which is a physical component of the GPU (similar to the NVENC controller) that serves as a coprocessor for the Nvidia GPU. In order to reduce total system latency while simultaneously enhancing system performance, it is designed to transfer GPU startup and administration functions directly from the CPU to the GPU. It has been stated by Nvidia that the GSP capability is now restricted, but will be enhanced in future driver releases. As a result, we may anticipate Nvidia to rely even more on its coprocessor to relieve the CPU's workload.

Both in gaming and in CPU-intensive GPU-centric applications, where the CPU is critical in transferring information to the GPU, we could see some big performance gains from using the new architecture. In particular, this is true given the fact that modern games make greater use of the CPU than ever before, owing to the maturity of lower-level APIs. Despite Nvidia's claim that it has restricted the functionality to Enterprise solutions (at least for the time being), the company has announced that the capability will be a critical component of Max-Q laptops expected for introduction in 2022 and later in the future.

In a new YouTube video launched today, Nvidia explains how the company's next version of Max-Q will improve efficiency between the CPU and graphics card. One of these qualities is the GPU System Processor (GSP), though in this case Nvidia refers to it as a "command processor" rather than a GPU System Processor. GSP and "command processor" are considered to be synonymous in our opinion because they both serve the same objective of offloading low-level duties from the CPU to the GPU in order to improve performance. As an example, Nvidia uses the Max-Q project to explain how command validation, which includes pointer verification and balance checks, will be moved from the CPU to the GPU for enhanced performance. We expect to learn more about this functionality in the near future, as Nvidia continues to develop it in 2022 and beyond.