Andrey Tkach

Do you, by any chance, know a way to monitor real GPU usage by process?

Hello fellow linusians, I've discovered a strange behavior with dwm.exe process and I hoped someone here can clarify things for me. Little background - this issue came to my attention while I was trying to push my system to produce stable 4k@60 in Witcher 3 on ultra/high settings. The specs are ryzen 3800x (yes, I got marketed into buying one of these), 32GB RAM 3600, RTX 2080super. The result is not bad - I get 50ish frames at ultra settings and if I drop some to high it's more like 55-60, but still not ideal. So I've noticed that while system isn't running any games, GPU usage shown in Task Manager and MSI Afterburner can go as high as 10-15%, divided between Desktop Windows Manager and Client Server Runtime Process. I've googled what these processes are and basically came to conclusion that the issue with them is unavoidable due to how Windows works these days. However, my main question is about what happen to dwm.exe GPU usage while the game is running. I've launched Witcher 3 to look at the behavior of this process and found out that it seems like all GPU load from the game was processed via dwm.exe, while the witcher.exe process sits at 0.1% GPU load. In the same time MSI Afterburner shows 99% GPU usage. Is this normal? If not, what can I do about it? Thanks in advance to anyone who takes time to post in this thread. P.S. For testing purposes I've ran witcher on my monitor in 1080p, not TV.

What info would you need to say if it's a cpu bottleneck or something else? I cant see any difinitive correlation between frame drops and cpu usage in afterburner logs, so that's why I'm sceptical. My RAM is on 2666 dual channel and processor speed is up to 3.2 in boost mode.

I would think that CPU bottleneck would affect overall performance, not produce random FPS drops. Also this issue occurs even at 60fps lock (gpu running at 40%), in older games like Skyrim, and was present on my previous rig with gtx 1080. Can you elaborate on ram running slower?

The usual stuff, chrome, some messengers, plex media server. I don't think thats relevant, since I've reproduced the issue without any (almost) software running in the background. I've also turned off Windows background capture functionality and GeForce Experience shadowplay. I'm going to try running the game from another drive and maybe reinstall drivers completely.

It's Corsair CX 650m [CP-9020103-EU] model, 80plus bronze sert.

I believe it is. It's an APC unit that have a button that pops up when power surges. I'm not sure about GFCI though, don't know what that is. The "ground" light is off, if that matters - fault of old electrical circuitry in the appartment, I think.

It's power strip, along with two monitors and speakers.

Nvidia Inspector P-states shows Performance Level 4 - P0. I've also set energy profile to Ultra Performance instead of High, and it didn't affect the issue.

I went back to the game and checked, drops occured even on 63-64C

HWMonitor was running in the background and GPU temps never went higher than 70C. CPU shows mere 56C.

Hi all! I've encountered a problematic behaviour with my recently upgraded setup, hope Linus crowd can help me. So any time I'm playing something (Witcher 3, Skyrim, Mordhau) every few minutes fps drops drastically. I'm running 144hz G-Sync compatible monitor and 2080super, but the same problem occured with previous 60hz monitor with gtx1080, I just haven't given it much thought. dxdiag and afterburner (3d entry in HardwareMonitoring.hml) log follows. Log is recorded for Witcher 3 at ultra settings, running of SSD drive that also holds the system. Background applications are all running, although I tested it with everything closed and it's the same. I've tried locking fps to 60 and turning vsync on, but the issue persists. I've noticed that my power levels drops right around FPS stutter and GPU load drop, could that be connected? P.S. I know my CPU probably bottlenecks 2080super some, but it's just a preparation for a new setup. HardwareMonitoring.hml