Scaling governor controls

[Tim Henderson]

On 07/17/2012 10:09 PM, Luke Kuhn wrote:
> This is REALLY crucial for some CPU intensive operations. That I know
> from experience includes video editing on newer desktops, and might
> include multitrack sound recording on netbooks and small laptops that a
> newsman or musician might take to a site or a gig. Games on open source
> video drivers also benefit from this, BTW.
>
> When I render videos using Kdenlive, I always set the governor to high,
> It makes a substantial difference in render time, apparently because of
> transient loads that pass before the governor can respond but
> collectively add up to a lot. Just as important to turn it down the rest
> of the time, especially using overclocked AMD FX 8120!
>
> These days I use the cpu frequency scaling indicator Ubuntu offers. It
> works in gnome-shell (Which I favor), Unity, but not in Icewm (netbook).
> Suspect it would not work in XFCE.  All that is really needed, of
> course, is some simple "click to run" scripts to reset the governor (did
> this before the indicator came out)-but they would need to run as root
> to function.  A simple GUI with easy access for end users, like that
> indicator but usable with XFCE, is really going to be needed for some
> workflows.
>
>
>  > Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2012 15:31:07 -0700
>  > From: "Len Ovens" <len at ovenwerks.net>
>  > To: "ubuntu studio" <Ubuntu-Studio-devel at lists.ubuntu.com>
>  > Subject: blueprint - research available audio improvements from
>  > audio/music sites
>  > Message-ID:
>  > <40918116aaaf8c854db6b24c91a20e8d.squirrel at ssl.ovenwerks.net>
>  > Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
> <clip>
>  >  scaling governor - normally ondemand, sometimes gets xrun when
>  > switching to higher speed. Noticeable difference with "performance"
>  > setting. Downsides, CPU runs hotter, batteries on battery run devices
>  > last less time. Best to be able to switch for as needed.
> <clip>
>
>

I apologize if I am oversimplifying this, but have you tried the 
xfce4-governor-plugin?  It's not installed by default, though it 
probably should be.  Install with apt-get, allows you to switch between 
different scale options.  You can see the changes in /proc/cpuinfo

Tim H.