Low GPU usage, game runs off of CPU

@realstyli said in Low GPU usage, game runs off of CPU:

Yeah, this sounds like a bottleneck on the CPU. Even though it's not maxed, you might find some of the threads are being hit quite hard.

I get fairly high utilisation on my RTX 2070 Super (topping at 80%ish, but I have Vsync on in Nvidia settings as I play on a large TV screen and playing at 1440p) but my CPU (Ryzen 7 3800XT) rarely goes above 20%. Upgrading your CPU, if it's not already decent, is probably a good shout or try lowering the resolution you're playing at, as resolution will have a big impact on your CPU performance. Also, double check you're not supersampling within the game (resolution scaling).

Hmm, thatt's so odd. I'm running an RTX 3070 with an i7 9700 at 1080p. I haven't had this issue with any other games.
Having the GPU run at only 10% immediately made me think that the game is deciding to use the on-board graphics of my i7.
Would you advise upgrading the i7 then? Would it be better if I switched to AMD, and if so, which one?

Either way thanks for responding!

@stroro said in Low GPU usage, game runs off of CPU:

I had the same issue with my AMD RX6800XT.

There would be some areas of the game where performance was just terrible and my GPU utilisation would be around 30% but throttled to about 1,200Mhz.
So it only using 30% while running at half its max speed.
My CPU was middling, running between 50-70%.

I asked on here and had no real answer. I asked on tech forums and had loads of suggestions but one guy said my CPU was throttling it. He was shot down by quite a lot of people.

I had an AMD 2600X and although getting old wasn't a poor performing CPU and usually when CPUs cause bottle necks they run maxed out.

Long story short, not long after I upgraded from a 2600X to a 5600X and all of a sudden my GPU ran at max speed and max boost.

What GPU do you have? NVidia cards are harder on the CPU than AMD cards. Not too long ago hardware unboxed did a test on "mid range" CPUS and showed NVidia cards suffer performance issues on these chips.

Hmm, yeah I guess that could be the case here. My RTX 3070 is obviously very new and probably fairly taxing on the CPU. Though I was convinced my i7 9700 would be able to handle it. The game ran smoother on my GTX 1060 than it does on my 3070 now...

@realstyli said in Low GPU usage, game runs off of CPU:

@wessmoment said in Low GPU usage, game runs off of CPU:

@realstyli said in Low GPU usage, game runs off of CPU:

Yeah, this sounds like a bottleneck on the CPU. Even though it's not maxed, you might find some of the threads are being hit quite hard.

I get fairly high utilisation on my RTX 2070 Super (topping at 80%ish, but I have Vsync on in Nvidia settings as I play on a large TV screen and playing at 1440p) but my CPU (Ryzen 7 3800XT) rarely goes above 20%. Upgrading your CPU, if it's not already decent, is probably a good shout or try lowering the resolution you're playing at, as resolution will have a big impact on your CPU performance. Also, double check you're not supersampling within the game (resolution scaling).

Hmm, thatt's so odd. I'm running an RTX 3070 with an i7 9700 at 1080p. I haven't had this issue with any other games.
Having the GPU run at only 10% immediately made me think that the game is deciding to use the on-board graphics of my i7.
Would you advise upgrading the i7 then? Would it be better if I switched to AMD, and if so, which one?

Either way thanks for responding!

For pure gaming, I wouldn't necessarily switch. I'm very much team red for CPUs these days but each has their benefits and drawbacks. You'd have to get a new MOBO if you went with AMD also.

A simpler upgrade might be to upgrade within the same CPU family, just increasing the clock speed and threads. For instance, an i9 9900K would fit the same socket as your 9700, so you might be able to keep the same MOBO (though you might need to update the firmware). I recommend getting some advice with someone more familiar with Intel though, they may be able to suggest a better investment.

That's a great shout. I will definitely be looking into this. Thanks man!

@stroro said in Low GPU usage, game runs off of CPU:

@realstyli said in Low GPU usage, game runs off of CPU:

@wessmoment said in Low GPU usage, game runs off of CPU:

@realstyli said in Low GPU usage, game runs off of CPU:

Yeah, this sounds like a bottleneck on the CPU. Even though it's not maxed, you might find some of the threads are being hit quite hard.

I get fairly high utilisation on my RTX 2070 Super (topping at 80%ish, but I have Vsync on in Nvidia settings as I play on a large TV screen and playing at 1440p) but my CPU (Ryzen 7 3800XT) rarely goes above 20%. Upgrading your CPU, if it's not already decent, is probably a good shout or try lowering the resolution you're playing at, as resolution will have a big impact on your CPU performance. Also, double check you're not supersampling within the game (resolution scaling).

Hmm, thatt's so odd. I'm running an RTX 3070 with an i7 9700 at 1080p. I haven't had this issue with any other games.
Having the GPU run at only 10% immediately made me think that the game is deciding to use the on-board graphics of my i7.
Would you advise upgrading the i7 then? Would it be better if I switched to AMD, and if so, which one?

Either way thanks for responding!

For pure gaming, I wouldn't necessarily switch. I'm very much team red for CPUs these days but each has their benefits and drawbacks. You'd have to get a new MOBO if you went with AMD also.

A simpler upgrade might be to upgrade within the same CPU family, just increasing the clock speed and threads. For instance, an i9 9900K would fit the same socket as your 9700, so you might be able to keep the same MOBO (though you might need to update the firmware). I recommend getting some advice with someone more familiar with Intel though, they may be able to suggest a better investment.

Im not very familiar with Intel chips anymore, their numbering got out of hand for me ;)

Having a quick look the i7 9700 does seem a good CPU, the base clock speed of 3Ghz is quite slow for now-a-days but has a high boost clock of 4.7Ghz which is still very decent.

Look for an application which allows you to show the CPU speed and temp while you are playing. See what speed the CPU is running at while playing and what temperature you are getting.

It is possible the CPU isn't boosting, because its not enabled or its running too hot.

Also check what windows power option is active. Press the Windows Start button and type "Choose A Power Plan" and press enter. In the new window make sure it's on balanced or performance mode. If its on Power Saver that could be causing it too. I sometimes start playing and wonder why its running like a bag of plop then I remember I have power saver mode on.

Thanks for your suggestions! I looked into it but I am running on 'Balanced'. I'll look into the temps but I'm still having a hard time understanding how my CPU would bottleneck my GPU to the point where it's limited to 10% usage. When playing much more CPU- and GPU-intensive games it doesn't seem to have any issues.
Would this be poor optimization of Sea of Thieves or is it really just my CPU causing issues?

Also check what windows power option is active. Press the Windows Start button and type "Choose A Power Plan" and press enter. In the new window make sure it's on balanced or performance mode. If its on Power Saver that could be causing it too. I sometimes start playing and wonder why its running like a bag of plop then I remember I have power saver mode on.

I've just had another test in-game and I spawned on a small island, which caused me to have around 200fps without stuttering. My GPU still wasn't being utilized but the game ran smooth. Then I sailed to a bigger island and my FPS immediately dropped to around 80. I recorded the temperatures and it seems like one of them got pretty rediculously high. (https://gyazo.com/a077dac9d1a4e092a75791140ffc8150)
I'm not too familiar with these kinds of information but 105 degrees Celsius seems pretty insane. Would this be a faulty CPU or am I overreacting?

@d3adst1ck said in Low GPU usage, game runs off of CPU:

I'm playing on an i7 2600K (ancient) and not getting more than 30% usage, with 100% on my RX590.

I think Nvidia control panel has a setting for default GPU and probably per-game as well. Have you checked those?

I looked into the NVidia control panel before and I changed the 'OpenGL rendering GPU' in the 3D settings to my 3070. Is this the setting you meant in this case? If not please tell me where else I could change it. Thanks in advance!

@d3adst1ck said in Low GPU usage, game runs off of CPU:

@wessmoment not familiar with Nvidia control panel myself, but Google says this:

Change your default GPU to a high-performance graphics card:

Right-click anywhere on your desktop.
Click NVIDIA Control Panel.
On the left side, select Manage 3D Settings.
Select the Global Settings tab
Change the preferred graphics processor to "High-performance NVIDIA processor."

Hmm, that's odd. The option doesn't seem to show up on my side. I'm not sure why it isn't there

Is it certain areas where you get poor performance? This happens to me, I can get 150fps at Galleons Grave Outpost and then be running 75fps at Sanctuary Outpost. There is one spot in Thieves Haven where the fps would drop to 50fps as seen in the screen shot. I run the game in a resolution of 3440x1440 with max settings. Changing the resolution and graphic detail in this area made very little difference.

I just did a quick test, I spawned at Ancient Spire Outpost. I looked around and my FPS would change quite drastically depending on which way I'd be facing. It'd be at a max of 100fps when facing away from the areas with more islands and then it'd dip down to 50-60fps when facing the opposite way, with some stuttering.
Then I sailed to Barancle Cay and there I was getting an average of about 160fps with no stuttering at all. The whole time my GPU was stuck around the same performance of 10% https://gyazo.com/00dc32e03c7eae839b0773ceb0d7db88

I mean 160fps is more than great on the highest settings but I just fail to understand how my GPU doesn't even get used in the slightest, especially when the game performance dips so much on other islands

@limend said in Low GPU usage, game runs off of CPU:

I think SoT may trick your PC that it isn't using your GPU.

I my self run SoT on i7-9700k with an 3080, Even though Task manager and NZXT Cam softwares both say that my GPU is under 10% load I can see clearly that it in fact isn't as the temperature keeps rising (60c right now) and GPU is running at 1935MHz but dropped to 1710MHz after closing SoT.

-SoT is using about 40% of my CPU.

This is a very good point. I just started up the game and used the same program I used for temps and it seems like my overal GPU gets used for about 50-60%. So I guess Windows was just failing to display that.
I also messed around with the settings a little bit more and discovered that the biggest sacrifice in FPS (when I am on bigger islands) came from turning the shadow details up. Having the setting on the lowest I easily get 100+ FPS, but when I turn it all the way up I start seeing drops to 50-60 FPS.
I guess I'll have to find a middle-ground with that setting.

I'd like to thank everyone that helped me out on this annoying investigation. I think it just comes down to some poor optimization. At least I now know that my PC isn't failing haha