Calculate the Average of GPU Utilization from nvidia-smi Command Output

Описание: Discover how to calculate the `average GPU utilization` using a simple `bash script` with the `nvidia-smi` command output. Learn to automate your GPU utilization calculations easily!
---
This video is based on the question https://stackoverflow.com/q/65778307/ asked by the user 'tirogza' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/13248533/ ) and on the answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/65778388/ provided by the user 'Raman Sailopal' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/7840440/ ) at 'Stack Overflow' website. Thanks to these great users and Stackexchange community for their contributions.

Visit these links for original content and any more details, such as alternate solutions, latest updates/developments on topic, comments, revision history etc. For example, the original title of the Question was: Calculate the Average of Numbers from command output

Also, Content (except music) licensed under CC BY-SA https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/l...
The original Question post is licensed under the 'CC BY-SA 4.0' ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... ) license, and the original Answer post is licensed under the 'CC BY-SA 4.0' ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... ) license.

If anything seems off to you, please feel free to write me at vlogize [AT] gmail [DOT] com.
---
How to Calculate the Average GPU Utilization with nvidia-smi

If you're working with NVIDIA GPUs, you might often find yourself needing to monitor their performance. One common task is calculating the average GPU utilization from the command output provided by the nvidia-smi tool. This powerful command-line utility gives you a wealth of information about your GPU, including utilization percentages. However, to make sense of these numbers, you may want to calculate their average over several readings. In this guide, we’ll show you a straightforward way to automate this process with a simple script.

Understanding the Problem

When you run the command:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

You might get an output similar to:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

This output consists of a header followed by various utilization percentages. To find the average of these values, you need to perform the following steps:

Extract the numeric values from the command output.

Sum all the numbers together.

Divide by the count of the numbers to find the average.

The Solution

To achieve this automation seamlessly, you can utilize a combination of commands in a bash script. Here’s how to do it using the awk command, which is great for processing text files and command output.

Step-by-Step Breakdown

Run the nvidia-smi Command: Use the command to get the GPU utilization values in CSV format.

Pipe the Output to awk: Use the pipe | to pass the output directly to awk, which will help process the data.

Filter and Calculate: You will set up awk to:

Identify lines containing digits followed by a space and a % sign.

Maintain a running total of the numbers.

Keep a count of how many numbers have been processed.

Output the Average: Finally, awk will divide the total sum by the count of numbers to give you the average.

Here’s the Complete Command

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

What Each Part of the Command Does

nvidia-smi --format=csv --query-gpu=utilization.gpu: This generates the list of GPU utilization percentages.

awk '/[[:digit:]]+ [[:space:]]%/ {...}: This processes each line:

The condition filters lines that contain numbers ending with a space and a percentage sign.

tot+ =$1; adds up all the numeric values found.

cnt+ + counts how many values have been found.

END { print tot/cnt }: After processing all input, this prints the average by dividing the total by the count.

Conclusion

Using this simple bash command leveraging nvidia-smi and awk, you can easily calculate the average utilization of your NVIDIA GPU. This capability is especially useful for performance monitoring and tuning your systems for optimal efficiency. With just a couple of lines, you can automate the task and ensure you’re always keeping an eye on your GPU's performance.

Now you can take charge of your GPU utilization insights quickly and efficiently! Happy computing!