GTX 1080 Low GPU Utilization

[Grubite]

I'm considering buying a 1440p 144hz screen so I decided to try GTA V at 1440p 144hz to see how my PC would do at maintaing 144fps at 1440p.

Even after lowering a lot of settings the game still runs at a below exceptional framerate considering my specs.

 

Specs :

i7 4790k OC @ 4.5ghz 

Cosair 16GB DDR3 @ 1600mhz

GTX 1080 FE OC

MSI Z97 Gaming 5 Motherboard

 

Game Settings :

DirectX 11

Fullscreen

2560 x 1440

FXXA On

MSAA Off

VSync Off

Population Desnity: MAX

Population Variety: MAX

Distance Scaling: MAX

Texture Quality: Very High

Shader Quality: High

Shadow Quality: Very High

Reflection Quality: Very High

Reflection MSAA: Off

Water Quality: High

Particles Quality: High

Grass Quality: High

Soft Shadows: Softer

Post FX: Very High

Motion Blur Strength: MAX

In-Game Depth Of Field Effects: On

Anisotrpic Filtering: x16

Ambient Occlusion: High

Tessellation: High

 

In this screenshot I'm getting around 70fps at 1440p with GPU Utilization below 50% (and CPU utilization at 66% indicating there is not a CPU bottleneck.)

 

Sometimes the GPU utilization will peak at ~90% and the game will boost to around 110-130fps which is much closer to the fps target im looking for as seen here

 

I can also guarantee this is a software problem and not a temperature issue as the game runs at 60-80fps at these same settings at 4K while pinned at 99% GPU utilization with no dips even when the temperature is hitting max. (Incase your wandering about the fan speed being pinned at 100%, I locked in their to see if there was a temperature problem earlier, load temps typically ~86c when at 100% usage).

[DarkBlade2117]

Don't expect to stay above 100FPS at all times in GTA. It won't happen. You should be expecting an avg 75-80FPS at Very High - Max settings.

[The Sloth]

gta is a good game but some things are jnot fully optimized just update all your drivers and see it that helps. 

[Grubite]

19 minutes ago, DarkBlade2117 said:

Don't expect to stay above 100FPS at all times in GTA. It won't happen. You should be expecting an avg 75-80FPS at Very High - Max settings.

I'm not running Very High - Max settings, I'm running pretty moderate settings and I'm getting only about 5-10fps more at 1440p vs 4K. That obviously is a sign of something wrong, and also the GPU utilization is usually 45-65% which is very low. It's obvious there is something wrong, It's a GTX 1080 lmao

[Grubite]

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[Suika]

7 hours ago, Grubite said:

(and CPU utilization at 66% indicating there is not a CPU bottleneck.) 

What's per core usage? Are any cores hitting 100%?

 

Total CPU usage usually doesn't indicate much about a bottleneck, however if a single core is hitting 100%, that is a good indicator. I doubt that's the case though, as I had a 3GHz Haswell quadcore run the game at 60FPS, I can't imagine a 4.5GHz Haswell chip getting only slightly better scores.

[Grubite]

3 hours ago, Suika said:

What's per core usage? Are any cores hitting 100%?

 

Total CPU usage usually doesn't indicate much about a bottleneck, however if a single core is hitting 100%, that is a good indicator. I doubt that's the case though, as I had a 3GHz Haswell quadcore run the game at 60FPS, I can't imagine a 4.5GHz Haswell chip getting only slightly better scores.

 

Nothing is wrong with the CPU, look at the cores each core is at the same ~60% utilization.

 

Also I forgot to show this in the beginning post,

Sometimes when I look at the ground the GPU Utilization peaks to around ~85% (Still low) and the framerate goes up to a much more desired 150fps which just shows the oddity of this issue. I'm thinking I should DDU and maybe even reinstall windows.  

[Grubite]

/

[Mick Naughty]

Run heaven with all the stats up to see. Core and memory clocks, voltage, all of the limits, power and usage. 

[Grubite]

2 hours ago, Mick Naughty said:

Run heaven with all the stats up to see. Core and memory clocks, voltage, all of the limits, power and usage. 

I ran heaven and GPU utilization was pinned at 99% but GPU Power % was all over the place anywhere between 60%-95% causing the average framerate to be 31fps at 4K Ultra graphics, Extreme Tesselation, and at 2x AA. I dont have the screenshot of the graphs because when I alt-tabbed from the program, my main monitor actually went off and the computer didn't recover and I had to reboot. That is a minor problem I've also been having is general driver instability. My only ideas to fix this at this point is to remove my GPU's overclock or reinstall windows but I doubt a downclock would fix the lackluster low resolution performance.

[Grubite]

UPDATE: I have decided to reinstall windows, hopefully it helps

[Dalynx]

1 hour ago, Grubite said:

UPDATE: I have decided to reinstall windows, hopefully it helps

I've had this problem your having but on different games , my advice would be a driver wipe and full reinstall , if that doesn't fix it then welcome to my world , I'm still not sure what's up with my card to this day 

[Grubite]

27 minutes ago, Dalynx said:

I've had this problem your having but on different games , my advice would be a driver wipe and full reinstall , if that doesn't fix it then welcome to my world , I'm still not sure what's up with my card to this day 

I just got back from reinstalling windows and everything is setup again, so far im not having any weird buggy issues like I did before but I'm still getting the low GPU utilization problem. Intrestingly, When at 4K CPU utilization is ~45-65% while at 1440p/1080p CPU utilization is ~65-75% this makes me wonder if there is a CPU bottleneck, but my CPU is top end so this shouldnt be happening, especially since Im overclocked. What card do you have btw???

[Mick Naughty]

I assume it's a software bug. 

Even with my 4790k hitting 100% and riding high 90% the gpu never moves from its 99% use. Just lags a bit. I haven't overclocked mine and I don't have the heat as a variable. 

 

You don't have random crashes do you?

[Dalynx]

11 hours ago, Grubite said:

I just got back from reinstalling windows and everything is setup again, so far im not having any weird buggy issues like I did before but I'm still getting the low GPU utilization problem. Intrestingly, When at 4K CPU utilization is ~45-65% while at 1440p/1080p CPU utilization is ~65-75% this makes me wonder if there is a CPU bottleneck, but my CPU is top end so this shouldnt be happening, especially since Im overclocked. What card do you have btw???

i have a gtx 1080 and i have low utilisation issues in some games, kinda worried this may be a thing with the 1080 haha?

[Mick Naughty]

30 minutes ago, Dalynx said:

i have a gtx 1080 and i have low utilisation issues in some games, kinda worried this may be a thing with the 1080 haha?

Doubt it's the card itself. Many can use it at 100%. Unless you're using it for 1080 of course. 

[Grubite]

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[Grubite]

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[Mick Naughty]

So did you address the temps? 

 

Also I'm pretty sure bumped are limited to once every 24 hours.