[SOLVED] GPU Usage Drops When I Spawn Props in GMOD

[oldtreebranch]

When I'm playing GMOD my gpu utilization is usually around 40%, and cpu 20%. I'm usually getting around 200-300 fps that's great, but there's a problem. The moment I start to spawn props and dupes My gpu utilization drops from 40% to 10% and even lower if there are enough props. This makes no sense, at least to me. This causes my frames to drops considerably. If anyone has had this problem and can help I would be so thankful.

My Specs:
RX 5600xt
Ryzen 5 2600 base clock
16gb DDR4 Corsair Ram

 

[InvalidError]

More stuff in the environment means more CPU-power being used to determine what needs to get rendered and how. I don't have gmod so I cannot check what CPU usage scaling in it looks like.

200+fps at only 20% CPU usage and 40% GPU usage looks like you may be running into a light-threaded CPU performance bottleneck with gmod only being able to meaningfully use about four threads. A quick google search turns up a posts from 2014 through 2018 basically saying that large chunks of gmod are still single-threaded.

There may not be much that can be done about it other than optimize maps to reduce the amount of stuff that gets animated.

 

[Nemesia]

Probably the 2004 Source Engine that can't keep up with the spawning. Not your system.

 

[Karadjgne]

Use HWInfo or Afterburner in game and look at per core usage. Not all core. I'll bet you are getting close to maxing out the primary thread with all the Ai. That's causing enough slowdown that the other used threads are also slowing down, just to stay current in the frame.

Utilization is somewhat misleading. It's not how much of the cpu that's used, it's how much resources the cpu uses. Ai is all computational, not physical, so the cpu doesn't require using much resources, just to think and give direction/instruction.

That engine wasn't designed for high multithreaded use, it was designed more for Intel IPC using heavy single thread usage on a quad core cpu.

You might have better luck disabling SMT and not splitting core bandwidths.

 

[oldtreebranch]

Use HWInfo or Afterburner in game and look at per core usage. Not all core. I'll bet you are getting close to maxing out the primary thread with all the Ai. That's causing enough slowdown that the other used threads are also slowing down, just to stay current in the frame.

Utilization is somewhat misleading. It's not how much of the cpu that's used, it's how much resources the cpu uses. Ai is all computational, not physical, so the cpu doesn't require using much resources, just to think and give direction/instruction.

That engine wasn't designed for high multithreaded use, it was designed more for Intel IPC using heavy single thread usage on a quad core cpu.

You might have better luck disabling SMT and not splitting core bandwidths.

The highest any of my cores got when I spawned props was 60% and it was the same when I didnt spawn any. When I spawned props most of the cores went to 20% and one was at 60%. The GPU drops from 30% to 10-5%.

 

[oldtreebranch]

Probably the 2004 Source Engine that can't keep up with the spawning. Not your system.

Yeah thats true, but my friends game is just fine. When they were playing with me their gpu utilization was fine, but they do have nvidia cards so that could be why. I'm not sure.

 

[oldtreebranch]

More stuff in the environment means more CPU-power being used to determine what needs to get rendered and how. I don't have gmod so I cannot check what CPU usage scaling in it looks like.

200+fps at only 20% CPU usage and 40% GPU usage looks like you may be running into a light-threaded CPU performance bottleneck with gmod only being able to meaningfully use about four threads. A quick google search turns up a posts from 2014 through 2018 basically saying that large chunks of gmod are still single-threaded.

There may not be much that can be done about it other than optimize maps to reduce the amount of stuff that gets animated.

Non of my threads go past 60% and even when there are no props one thread was staying at 60%. The only thing that changes when I spawn props is my GPU utilization.

 

[InvalidError]

Non of my threads go past 60% and even when there are no props one thread was staying at 60%. The only thing that changes when I spawn props is my GPU utilization.

Try disabling SMT as Kara mentioned. Lightly threaded code performs worse when the core it is running on is sharing cycles with another random thread.

 

[oldtreebranch]

Try disabling SMT as Kara mentioned. Lightly threaded code performs worse when the core it is running on is sharing cycles with another random thread.

I did this and it didn't work. My gpu usage still dropped and even to 0% sometimes. Thanks for the help though. I really appreciate it!

 

[Karadjgne]

Have you setup gmods multicore rendering?

Open up console and enter the following gmod_mcore_test 1 mat_queue_mode -1 cl_threaded_bone_setup 1

These can be also be added to your gmods config.cfg file

 

[oldtreebranch]

Have you setup gmods multicore rendering?

Open up console and enter the following gmod_mcore_test 1 mat_queue_mode -1 cl_threaded_bone_setup 1

These can be also be added to your gmods config.cfg file

Yeah I have. It doesn't seem to do much. My gpu usage still drops when I spawn dupes and props.

 

[Karadjgne]

That's just odd. The pc should be using more resources with the extra Ai, objects etc.

 

[oldtreebranch]

That's just odd. The pc should be using more resources with the extra Ai, objects etc.

Yeah thats the problem it makes no sense at all. I've looked everywhere and no one has had this problem before.

 

[Karadjgne]

The only thing that would make any sense is if the pc was eco limited. My old Z77 had a switch on the mobo for eco settings, and that would limit the cpu to a 40% load. Spread across multiple cores, the more cores needed, the lower the actual usage per core. If the Ai from the drops is needing further core usage, you'd go from 40% single core to 20% on 2 cores or 10% on 4 cores etc.

 

[oldtreebranch]

The only thing that would make any sense is if the pc was eco limited. My old Z77 had a switch on the mobo for eco settings, and that would limit the cpu to a 40% load. Spread across multiple cores, the more cores needed, the lower the actual usage per core. If the Ai from the drops is needing further core usage, you'd go from 40% single core to 20% on 2 cores or 10% on 4 cores etc.

Is there a way I can check if this is on? I dont think I have this, but its worth a shot.

 

[Karadjgne]

Check the motherboard manual. If there is such a tpu/eco switch, it'll be labeled.
Also check windows power plan, should be on Balanced not power saving, in the advanced tab min power state should be 5% and max should be 100%. Check the Asus Suite or other motherboard software and make sure it's not on eco. There's also settings in bios for eco. Make sure any of those is disabled.

Theres multiple places Eco can be enabled, it only takes 1 to override the system and throw a wrench in the works.

 

[oldtreebranch]

Check the motherboard manual. If there is such a tpu/eco switch, it'll be labeled.
Also check windows power plan, should be on Balanced not power saving, in the advanced tab min power state should be 5% and max should be 100%. Check the Asus Suite or other motherboard software and make sure it's not on eco. There's also settings in bios for eco. Make sure any of those is disabled.

Theres multiple places Eco can be enabled, it only takes 1 to override the system and throw a wrench in the works.

Sorry for the super late reply. I looked everywhere and there is no eco mode for my motherboard. Thank you for the help though!