CPU 100% while gaming

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
A

aymans87

Distinguished
Oct 6, 2015
43
6
18,535
Hello,

My pc has lots of lags and is running slow while playing games. Any new game out there.
I have tried PES 2016, call of duty black ops 3, mortal kombat X. God knows that PES 2016 is a light game.

I have a new rig, I just bought it a week ago.
- Asus pro gaming z170
- i5 6600K
- Nvidia GTX 970
- 16 GB DDR4 RAM
The lagging is largely reduced when I play at lesser resolutions. (I have a 1080p. 144 mhz, g sync acer monitor).

I found out that every time I run a game, the game itself consumes 100% of my CPU when I check the cpu activity, and the other applications runs at 30% max all together. When I turn everything off, the game still consumes about 100% and the remaining activities about 5%. CPU temperature is never above 50°C. RAM usage is max 30%.

This is only happening while I am playing a game. Altough kaspersky sometimes alone consumes about 30% and I am considering to remove it since I have the demo version. But I find this weird that it consumes this much though. Something is wrong.

How is this possible, I have updated everything that could be updated and still I have the problem!

Please help
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
thank you for your answer, I will try that. Also I forgot to mention that when I open my Asus Alsuite software I see the cpu running between 800 mhz and 4100 mhz. While in game however, it is always stable at 4100 mhz. Is this normal? Shouldn't supposed to be always stable even while doing nothing?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I would also check to make sure your drivers are up to date for your graphics card. You said that the lag seems to go away when you reduce the resolution which would point more to the gpu than the cpu. In cpu gaming benchmarks to compare cpu performance directly, most test setups involve playing at extremely low resolutions to place more load on the cpu and take the gpu out of the equation. If it were your cpu being the issue, performance would get worse when you lowered the resolution rather than improve.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


That is what I figured but the difference isn't that much between low and high settings. All drivers are up to date! I can't seem to know why any game will take up to 100% of my i5 6600K activity.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


I did that but it did not resolve the problem. As soon as I launch the game the cpu activity is at least 70% and up to 100%.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Depending on the game it's not uncommon for it to take up 100% cpu usage. Unless you have a limiting factor like a fps lock at 60fps or something it would seem reasonable for a program to use all available resources up to max capacity. The gpu only being used to 70% while the cpu is at 100% would indicate a cpu bottleneck, the cpu at 70% while the gpu is at 100% would indicate a gpu bottleneck. Doubtful either are a bottleneck so both should be close to full usage. To use both at only part of their potential would be crippling the game's potential performance and more or less similar to running the game on lesser hardware.

Having active virus scanning in the background it will depend on the application. Some active virus scans will sense there's activity and suspend or lower their priority to give priority to the program in use (the game). Others can get in the way and slow things down.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Thank you for your answer. But I find it hard to believe for a game to take about 91% of the 6600k cpu. This causing the pc to be slow and fps drop. Is there a way to limit fps drop to 60 for example?
The problem isn't occuring on my laptop with a spightly worst cpu. So is there any solution for this?
A cpu like this should not bottelneck when running one game and nothing else. Note that even if I do a system scan with an antivirus the cpu usage by the anitvirus is about 90% and the pc slow down hard. I feel that there is something that is not right. On my laptop that I bought 6 years ago I have a good i7 with 3.5ghz and 8mb cash and I never ever used more than 40% cpu and i used to multitask alot. Never had a lag or a drop in system responsiveness because cpu was never bottelnecked.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
If a virus scan takes up 91% of the cpu you can expect all other programs including games to come to a screeching halt. Many av programs are designed to run in the background and give priority to other applications, apparently yours isn't designed that way. There's also different settings depending on the av for background/real time scanning (say everytime you access a file) vs an active scan. Active scans shouldn't be run while you're trying to work, the cpu is going to be busy performing the scan as will the hard drive.

Which game is it that this is happening on exactly? All games are different and require different amounts of system performance to run. What other applications are you trying to run while you're gaming? Other applications can degrade gaming performance. Another reason it can depend on the game, for instance I was looking at my own i5 playing skyrim.

Most of the time my cpu is at 30-40% and my gpu is at 80% but fluctuates. Part of the reason for that, skyrim is capped at 60fps by default so on ultra at 60fps that's all the more cpu/gpu power it needs from my system. If I took the 60fps cap off I'm sure fps would go up and cpu/gpu usage would also go up (at least until my gpu bottlenecked but I already know this) and in the case of skyrim the 60fps cap affects other things. Allowing it to raise higher would cause other in game timing issues.

Cod ghosts is different, it's not capped at 60fps and cpu/gpu usage go higher as well as fps.

Are you using any sort of temperature monitor like realtemp to tell you what your cpu temps are?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Hi. I am using Alsuite 3 from asus. It shows that temp never goes up above 40 or 50 at worst cases.
I have tried 4 games for now. Only 1 shows no lags and runs smooth. It is CS go and it only uses 1% of my cpu. I can see that in task manager. The other 3 games call of duty black ops 3, mortal kombat x and pes 2016 do not run smooth at all and show many lags. When I verify their specific cpu usages it is between 70-99%. The background activity of yhe antivirus is reduced when the cpu usage by games applications is induced. It automatically shifts. But i am saying if i just launch a full system scan it will use around 90% of the cpu. I have tried malwarebytes, kaspersky and norton and they all perform almost the same. I do not do any other activity while scanning but I can't even open a webpage without it being too slow in the meantime.
I also mentioned that my cpu speed fluctuates between 800 and about 4000 mhz when no application is open.
So in conclusion the 100% of cpu is hit almost exclusively by the game itself and not in combination with other applications and this generating extreme lags. I am also concerned by the high cpu usage of other applications like antiviruses. I just don't want to have lags and I can't understand how this i5 is bottelnecked so quickly.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Speed is oscillating because of power saving and turbo mode. Why don't you try setting CPU at it's highest turbo setting and let it run all the time at that speed ? It takes some time for CPU to react and get up to full speed from idle setting so it may introduce the lag.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Cpu speed fluctuating is normal, it's intel's speedstep to reduce power consumption. No reason to run at 4ghz while it's idling. If a background process pops up which could be anything windows is doing, it's not abnormal to have a cpu burst to 4ghz for a second and drop back down.

Av scans (user started) are typically intensive and that's why people opt to run them on a scheduler on off hours. If I were using a pc during business hours it would be a royal pain to try and use it during a virus scan. The ram is busy, the cpu is busy, the hard drive is busy and all should be maxed out as much as possible unless you wanted the system scan to take even longer.

People have been complaining about mortal kombat x and its lag across a variety of system hardware.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/307780/discussions/0/618459405715994228/

People with an i7, gtx titan and 16gb of ram having issues with pes 2016. "Pes 2016 lag" as a google search brings up a number of discussions and proposed fixes.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/375960/discussions/0/517142253860130035/
https://pesgalaxy.com/index.php/Thread/5047-Lag-in-Pes-2016/
http://gamunation.com/pro-evolution-soccer-2016-lag-fix-reduce-lag-in-pes-2016/

Similar for black ops 3 though not quite as bad it seems. Keep in mind these articles on black ops 3 are from just a week or two ago.
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/104424/20151109/black-ops-3-frame-rate-issues-heres-a-possible-fix.htm
http://gamunation.com/error-fixes-for-call-of-duty-black-ops-3-stuttering-crashes-bugs/

No amount of hardware is going to solve poorly coded or buggy games and unfortunately I see people reporting issues with all those games you listed. Not just the occasional gamer who may have a faulty setting or bad hardware, issues bad enough the companies are working on bug fixes. In terms of new games the buyer/gamer pays for the game and gets to be a 'beta tester' really, sorting out all the quirks. If you have a problematic game then a $1000 i7 5960x, 64gb of ram and 3 titan x in sli aren't going to fix the problem.

That's about all I can offer, I'm scratching my head as to why an i5 and 970 would have issues with gaming. After doing a quick google search on those 3 titles you mentioned those were some of the top links that popped up and multiple forums and comments of users reporting the same whether newer or slightly older cpu's, i5's or i7's. When that situation crops up I start looking at the game software itself as it indicates a more generic problem that hardware may not be able to fix.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


How can I do that? If I select power scheme to high performance and then overclock my cpu using the asus Alsuite and select performance instead of eco mode from the Alsuite, it still fluctuates.
However this might not be the problem, since in game the cpu speed is almost always at the top, but I am willing to give it a try, I just can't figure out how to make it stable.

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Thank for your replies. I will see what to do though not much left to be done. How can I check my gpu %, i want to compate it to my cpu % during gaming since I am already at 100% cpu
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
From what I saw on the Steam forums, BOPS 3 was having a ton of performance issues and I know MKX had a lot too. Not sure about PES 2016.

The way most games run is they use one core for the game itself with additional cores being used for other features. For example, Crysis had to have a dual core because the first core was used for the game with the second core being used for the sound processing. So what you are seeing is normal for most games while there are some that are better at putting the load across more cores (Left 4 Dead is a good example although that game runs great on most hardware).

Have you tried any other games than the mentioned games? Something that is not known to have performance issues? The Witcher 3, maybe a MMO or some other game that has solid performance currently?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Thank you for your answer, no I didn't try other games. I will try maybe the witcher 3 soon. When I run MKX the same application on my brother's pc i7 4720 and gtx 960 it runs super fluent with cpu being used at 24% whereas mine is used at 100! It is not only games, sometimes the background activity of the antivirus or "Nvidia Backend" reaches 37% of the cpu and I can't understand that.



 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Are you running the same anti-virus? Different anti-viruses act differently. I typically run the built in Windows Defender with some non active apps as backup in case I ever get a virus.

Have you tried running CPUID HWMonitor to watch your CPU clock speed while gaming? Make sure it is kicking up to its normal speed?

What about drivers such as the chipset and any other drivers specific to the Z170 board, are they up to date?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
All drivers are up to date, I have tried 3 different antiviruses, all the same. CPU clock speed is always around 3600 mhz at least while gaming.


 
Upvote 0 Downvote


I have a gsync monitor connected with a display port to the gtx 970. I basically stopped any un necessary application from running at startup. Frankly if someone explains how gsync works and what should I do on my part concerning its good function I would be more than happy.

Is it really normal for an i5 6600k cpu to be used at this percentage by nvidia backend and other softwares, and to be bottelnecked by a gaming application (tested in other pc) itself!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom