Question Cyberpunk lagging on high end laptop

[Epsilon94]

I decided I would load my save game again after not playing in like a year, and it started so damn laggy, and it took a couple minutes to even get to the main menu. I'm using a Gigabyte Aero 17 HDR YD with an RTX 3080 and an intel 11th gen 11980HK. I saw that the game's launcher said my intel drivers were out of date, so I used the provided link to download intel's detection software and download 3 drivers, one of which was for the cpu. Then I updated my nvidia drivers to the latest version, lowered the game resolution down to 1080p, turned off ray tracing from low, brought crowd density to low, checked windows power settings, told Nvidia control panel to favour the Nvidia GPU, including specifically for Cyberpunk. The game is still laggy on the "steamdeck" preset. I'm getting about 15-22 fps while running. Task manager is showing that my cpu is running at 100% while the gpu maxes out at 36%, but when I open MSI afterburner, it says the opposite, that GPU 2 is 100%, and it says GPU 2 is the rtx 3080. I've played the game with the settings it already had saved, so I really don't know. I'm at a loss here and I just wanna play the game. If anyone could help out here, I'd really appreciate it.

 

[geofelt]

My canned response to laptop performance issues:
---------------------------
I see many complaints about gaming laptops not performing well.
Usually gaming while plugged in.
One common cause is thermal throttling.
Laptop coolers must, of necessity be small and light.
The coolers are also relatively underpowered.
If you run an app such as HWMonitor or HWinfo, you will get the current, minimum, and maximum cpu temperatures. Set to see each individual core.
For intel processors, if you see a max of 100c. in red, it means you have throttled.
I think the number for ryzen is more like 85c-90c.
The cpu will lower it's multiplier and power draw to protect itself until the situation reverses.
At a lower multiplier, your cpu usage may well be at 100%
What can you do?
First, see that your cooler airways are clear and that the cooler fan is spinning.
Use a windows balanced power profile, not the performance profile.
Set a minimum cpu performance to something like 20%

It is counter-intuitive, but, try changing the windows balanced power profile advanced functions to a max of 90% instead of the default of 100%
You may not notice the reduced cpu performance.

 

[Epsilon94]

My problem is that I've had this laptop for 4 years and I've never had these issues before while my laptop was connected to power. And that my gpu doesn't seem to be properly utilized, while the cpu seems to be handling it all. I've recently replaced the CPU fan, but the thermals only reach 60° while gaming

 

[Firestone]

usually if I am in doubt of the reported usages of the Nvidia GPU, I would just run `nvidia-smi` from the terminal. That should give you the most accurate metric of GPU usage.

also possibly relevant? https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-com...er-after-recent-rtx-50-centric-release-issues

you said you updated to latest Nvidia drivers, perhaps try rolling back to the last known good version you used. Or a 2024 version as described in that article

 

[Epsilon94]

Thank you, I'll try it out!