Low gpu usage

[Gardmikk]

Im having a problem with my gpu where i cant get the gpu usage over 70% in all games, and im playing at 1080p. Is this normal, and if not, how can i fix it?

Specs: Gtx 1080, Ryzen 7 2700x, 16GB Ram.

[imbrock]

What games? Lots of games have trouble pushing them to 100%, especially at 1080, maybe try bumping display scaling up in some games that support it so that youre running at a higher resolution. I find games like GTA V and DOOM are good for this sort of testing because they have a lot of advanced graphics options to fiddle with.

[NickPickerWI]

With a GTX 1080 at 1080p, I'm surprised it's even going that high.

 

It's not a problem with your GPU. Your GPU isn't working at 100% utilization because it doesn't need to - think of a Ferrari on a city street. It's not utilizing all of its power, because it doesn't need to for what you're asking it to do.

 

If it were working at 100% it would be because it was being tasked with too much and can't handle it. It would be throttling.

[Gardmikk]

Just now, imbrock said:

What games? Lots of games have trouble pushing them to 100%, especially at 1080, maybe try bumping display scaling up in some games that support it so that youre running at a higher resolution. I find games like GTA V and DOOM are good for this sort of testing because they have a lot of advanced graphics options to fiddle with.

Im playing Battlefield V. And i want to reach 144fps, but i dont think i can reach 144fps if i turn up the display scaling.

[imbrock]

Just now, Gardmikk said:

Im playing Battlefield V. And i want to reach 144fps, but i dont think i can reach 144fps if i turn up the display scaling.

What are your graphics settings? If you want to hit 144, I've found that having AA off, Vsync off, textures high or lower, particles down, etc. There are a lot of things to trade for frames but in online FPS I find keeping shadows and lighting up higher is good to have on and everything else goes down.

[Gardmikk]

1 hour ago, imbrock said:

What are your graphics settings? If you want to hit 144, I've found that having AA off, Vsync off, textures high or lower, particles down, etc. There are a lot of things to trade for frames but in online FPS I find keeping shadows and lighting up higher is good to have on and everything else goes down.

Ok, thanks. I will try that.

[Gardmikk]

2 hours ago, NickPickerWI said:

With a GTX 1080 at 1080p, I'm surprised it's even going that high.

 

It's not a problem with your GPU. Your GPU isn't working at 100% utilization because it doesn't need to - think of a Ferrari on a city street. It's not utilizing all of its power, because it doesn't need to for what you're asking it to do.

 

If it were working at 100% it would be because it was being tasked with too much and can't handle it. It would be throttling.

Ok, i understand, but i have set the maximum frame rate to 144, why isnt doesnt the gpu try to reach 144fps?

[NickPickerWI]

Just now, Gardmikk said:

Ok, i understand, but i have set the maximum frame rate to 144, why isnt doesnt the gpu try to reach 144fps?

A lot of reasons.

 

What is your CPU usage? What is your system RAM usage? What is your video card's RAM usage? How fast is your hard drive, are you using an SSD or an NVMe drive for storage?

 

You could be bottlenecking somewhere.

 

Also, how's your heat? Have you used software to see if your video card or CPU are throttling due to high heat?

 

If I understand GPU's correctly, there are many, many cores inside a GPU, and not all of them are used for all things (by how games are designed). The game you're playing might not be using the video card's cores 100% efficiently or evenly due to the game's architecture. I play Guild Wars 2, and it doesn't even use half my video card - it uses more CPU than GPU. Some games only use some of the cores for certain tasks, like crunching numbers on lighting effects. Some cores may only be crunching numbers on physics. It could be an issue with the game more than the card, where a faster card "solves" the problem, but just because it's able to deal with the game's inefficiencies with more power.

 

Games (and all modern software) have no concept of efficiency anymore. They don't need to. There's two ways to develop software: with efficiency, and quickly. Old times, you were forced to be efficient because the hardware was really limiting. With hardware the way it is now, you can just throw more powerful hardware at it and say "sorry for everyone who can't keep up." Everyone wants everything done yesterday, including developers.

 

It could be many things. Unless you're seeing stuttering and severe dips in performance, or things like wrong colors and artifacting, your card is working fine.

[Gardmikk]

2 minutes ago, NickPickerWI said:

A lot of reasons.

 

What is your CPU usage? What is your system RAM usage? What is your video card's RAM usage? How fast is your hard drive, are you using an SSD or an NVMe drive for storage?

 

You could be bottlenecking somewhere.

 

Also, how's your heat? Have you used software to see if your video card or CPU are throttling due to high heat?

 

If I understand GPU's correctly, there are many, many cores inside a GPU, and not all of them are used for all things (by how games are designed). The game you're playing might not be using the video card's cores 100% efficiently or evenly due to the game's architecture. I play Guild Wars 2, and it doesn't even use half my video card - it uses more CPU than GPU. Some games only use some of the cores for certain tasks, like crunching numbers on lighting effects. Some cores may only be crunching numbers on physics. It could be an issue with the game more than the card, where a faster card "solves" the problem, but just because it's able to deal with the game's inefficiencies with more power.

 

Games (and all modern software) have no concept of efficiency anymore. They don't need to. There's two ways to develop software: with efficiency, and quickly. Old times, you were forced to be efficient because the hardware was really limiting. With hardware the way it is now, you can just throw more powerful hardware at it and say "sorry for everyone who can't keep up." Everyone wants everything done yesterday, including developers.

 

It could be many things. Unless you're seeing stuttering and severe dips in performance, or things like wrong colors and artifacting, your card is working fine.

Ok, thank you. I just wanted to be sure that the gpu worked and that i wasnt missing out on performance. 

[NickPickerWI]

35 minutes ago, Gardmikk said:

Ok, thank you. I just wanted to be sure that the gpu worked and that i wasnt missing out on performance. 

Sure, I understand that.

 

I would recommend, at the very least, checking your temperatures - run a program like HWMonitor to make sure you're not choking your CPU or GPU. I do on every PC I build just to make sure something isn't haywire, and I check it periodically to make sure something didn't go haywire.