[SOLVED] GPU usage not reaching 100% in games ; any advice ?

[Enzo69]

Hello people, I recently had my PC boosted with a new RTX 3060 ti and I feel like it's underperforming in games. At 1080p with my 144hz g-sync compatible monitor everything should run buttersmooth, yet it does not ; I think I've found the "culprit", which is low and inconsistent GPU usage. It should be 100% no matter what right ? It is not. Maybe you could suggest me tips on how to solve this problem ?

The card is clearly not overheating - it's a Gigabyte custom with an improved refrigeration system, it sits in a properly-cooled ICUE gaming tower and according to the task manager its temperature during gaming sessions hover around 50° celsius. So far using RivaTuner Statistics I've tested two triple-A games from my Steam library, both installed on a brand new NVMe SSD, and found similar results :

• Watch Dogs 2 : stutters like crazy when moving across the map on less than max settings, due to big framerate shifts (between 120 and 60 fps). The GPU usage tops at 70-80% (roughly), but it's not constant, it often drops below that. Uncapped, the framerate never dives below 60 fps, but if I cap it at 60 fps, then it will drop below that limit and the stuttering stays the same.
• Deus Ex Mankind Divided : while this graphically outdated game ran overall much smoother than WD, the GPU usage fluctuated wildly between 40% and 70% ; the framerate was not consistent either, it varied between 110 and 70, causing some stutters - yet all I did was running around the city hub, which is a very static map with no explosions, fire or anything like that. Tested on both high and absolute ultra settings, same stuff. On my last test without FPS cap, on ultra, the framerate briefly dropped below 60 fps while I was running towards a wall, which matched with the GPU usage suddenly dipping at 40%.

This is imo not a CPU bottleneck because the CPU is never used at 100%, and Deus Ex isn't a CPU intensive game anyway, yet the issue is similar.

The rest of my specs : i7 8700, 16gb ram 2133mhz, Fortron ATX 700W 80+ bronze, a SSD Intel NVMe for the games and another SSD in Sata for Windows.
I play with both G-sync and v-sync on, per official recommendations. And yes, I have installed the latest Nvidia GPU drivers.

I apologize for the lenghty post, I thought I should try to be as precise as possible. Does anyone have a clue on what could be the source of the matter ? Is it PSU stuff, a voltage issue maybe ? Is it a bug with Windows 10 and the new RTX cards, which would require a complete reinstall of the OS, as someone suggested to me (saying it had fixed their performance issue with Watch Dogs 2) ?

Thank you so much in advance ! I'll be very grateful for any tip.
Cheers, stay safe.

 

[Phaaze88]

Where do you see than my CPU isn't hitting boost clocks ?

UBM: Turbo avg 4.1ghz
i7-8700 turbo clocks: https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/core_i7/i7-8700#Frequencies

 

[Enzo69]

UBM: Turbo avg 4.1ghz
i7-8700 turbo clocks: https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/core_i7/i7-8700#Frequencies

I see. Well maybe USB didn't push it to its maximum level. Or, as @RTX 2080 said before, my slow RAM is clogging my system and preventing my CPU/GPU from operating at full capacity.

 

[Phaaze88]

I see. Well maybe USB didn't push it to its maximum level. Or, as @RTX 2080 said before, my slow RAM is clogging my system and preventing my CPU/GPU from operating at full capacity.

Hmm... If all the 8700's cores are being loaded, they should be boosting to at least 4.3ghz - ram has no effect on this.
That it isn't boosting correctly tells me 2 possible things:
1)You didn't clean install Windows from whatever your last cpu + mobo config was.
2)Chipset driver isn't installed or up to date.

If it were thermal throttling, it'd be a lot lower than 4.1ghz, so it isn't that.

 

[RTX 2080]

I see. Well maybe USB didn't push it to its maximum level. Or, as @RTX 2080 said before, my slow RAM is clogging my system and preventing my CPU/GPU from operating at full capacity.

Even a relatively light task can cause a CPU task to hit high boost clocks, it's not required that all your cores and threads be utilized all the way to do so. A stress test of all things should be representative of the very hardest your hardware can be pushed, so it's strange that your boost clocks seem low.

Slow RAM can affect the throughput of your CPU, but it won't affect it's ability to hit a certain boost clock. To use an analogy, think of it like an assembly line where the conveyor belt is the RAM and the worker is the CPU: if the conveyor belt moves slowly, the worker will only be able to assemble things as he receives it on the belt, limiting his throughput. However, the slow belt doesn't prevent the worker from putting parts together as fast as he can once he has stuff to assemble (which would in this case represents how you should hit high boost clocks regardless of your RAM speed and regardless of utilization).

 

[Enzo69]

Hmm... If all the 8700's cores are being loaded, they should be boosting to at least 4.3ghz - ram has no effect on this.
That it isn't boosting correctly tells me 2 possible things:
1)You didn't clean install Windows from whatever your last cpu + mobo config was.
2)Chipset driver isn't installed or up to date.

If it were thermal throttling, it'd be a lot lower than 4.1ghz, so it isn't that.

1. Indeed I'm absolutely not certain the last technician I saw did a fresh installation of Windows after I had him change my old Kanby Lake i5 to a new Coffee Lake i7 and its compatible mobo and I now know it can cause issues, what you said solidified my suspicion.
2. Afraid I don't really know anything about chipset drivers. Is it tied to BIOS updates, the thing that can wreck your machine if not done properly ?

@RTX 2080 Great analogy, very clear, TY very much. I'll ask my technie to fresh-start my OS once he has finished installed the faster RAM and install the latest drivers for everything. Hopefully that will bring improvements.

 

[Phaaze88]

Afraid I don't really know anything about chipset drivers. Is it tied to BIOS updates, the thing that can wreck your machine if not done properly ?

Chipset drivers can be updated without risk. There are some security updates in Intel Management Engine that do require bios updates alongside them.
Gonna take a look at your mobo support page real quick...




EDIT: Ok, no such warning about mandatory bios with chipset updates.
There are 3 different chipset drivers for your mobo:
-Intel Management Engine Firmware: 2‎020.14.0.1600(latest)
-Intel Serial I/O Driver: 3‎0.100.2020.7(latest)
-Intel INF Installation: 1‎0.1.18383.821(latest)

You can usually leave bios updates alone, but they do sometimes contain security and compatibility patches, and if nothing else works, well I'd consider doing it.

 

[InvalidError]

I think I've found the "culprit", which is low and inconsistent GPU usage. It should be 100% no matter what right ?

No, GPU usage will only be 100% when the CPU is able to feed it that many frames and still not hit the vsync limit.

As for the CPU bottleneck, games have many threads and in most games, there is a performance-critical core thread. Once that thread bottlenecks on single-threaded CPU performance, it does not matter if your overall CPU usage is 1% from having a 64c128t CPU, you will still have a frame rate bottleneck from that one thread.

For example, on my i5-3470, WoW uses 60% of my CPU overall and its frame rate is limited by the core thread that uses 25% of the CPU at all times. If I had a 6c12t CPU, WoW would already be CPU-bottlenecked at less than 25% overall CPU usage since most of its CPU usage would still be coming from that one single core thread now accounting for only 9% of the whole CPU instead of 25%.

 

[Enzo69]

So @RTX 2080 and all of you kind people who helped me, I had the fastest possible RAM installed, had Windows completely reset, reinstalled the GPU drivers and (re ?)installed the chipset (mobo) drivers that you RTX told me about... Watch Dog 2's performance is still dog crap, it stutters even on "high" settings with the framerate locked at 60fps - while the GPU is still sitting on its lazy bottom. Guess this is a just a curse or something. Dunno what to do.

 

[drivinfast247]

@sydneyblue203 just because your feeling got hurt 😢 doesn't mean you should down vote people trying to help.

 

[RTX 2080]

@sydneyblue203 just because your feeling got hurt 😢 doesn't mean you should down vote people trying to help.

Don't mind him, some people just aren't very mature.

 

[RTX 2080]

So @RTX 2080 and all of you kind people who helped me, I had the fastest possible RAM installed, had Windows completely reset, reinstalled the GPU drivers and (re ?)installed the chipset (mobo) drivers that you RTX told me about... Watch Dog 2's performance is still dog crap, it stutters even on "high" settings with the framerate locked at 60fps - while the GPU is still sitting on its lazy bottom. Guess this is a just a curse or something. Dunno what to do.

Strange. Unfortunately this has moved outside my area of experience at this point so I'm not too sure where to go from here.

For reference, what RAM are you using now?

 

[Ash95]

Firstly, is the gpu in the correct port?

assuming it is...

Go into nvidia control panel, make sure physx is set to auto-select. Then make sure that your game/platform, is selected to utilise the gpu.

If this fails, completely uninstall your gpu drivers and then do a custom install, select to install them clean and reinstall geforce.

If it is still not running well, uninstall steam etc and then reinstall and reinstall your games (this could take a while...).

 

[Phaaze88]

@Enzo69
A recap of sorts:
1)Userbenchmark: The wrong turbo clocks was all that stood out here.
2)Reinstalled Windows: the motherboard's drivers were updated afterwards, I hope.
3)Installed faster ram: I wasn't expecting much from this one.
4)No immediate signs of thermal throttling.
5)No need to cover DDU, since reinstalling Windows would've wiped the old gpu drivers anyway.


Hmm...
Some other ideas that might not have been covered:
A)Tried running those games on that 1TB SSD?
B)Do you run those games in Windowed mode? If so, set G-Sync to also run in Window mode by going to Nvidia Control Panel > Set up G-Sync. Don't forget to click Apply after making the change.

C)Nvidia Control Panel > Manage 3D Settings > Vertical Sync: Set to Adaptive.
Might help with the stuttering.

D)Are you running a secondary monitor(s) off the gpu with a different refresh rate? If so, plug that into the mobo instead.

That's all the cards I got left... I think.

 

[Enzo69]

@RTX 2080 @Ash95 @Phaaze88 gonna answer you with a single post and then I'll be on my way because I have already taken up too much of your time, you've been very sweet and I thank you sincerely for your patience.

• The tech guy gave me Corsair 3000mhz DDR4, said it didn't matter if the max speed was above what my system could handle, he said "It's the processor who decides", whatever that means.
• Windows being reset means my GPU driver reverted to a much older version so I used the latest one from the nvidia website, installed it directly by activating the package in administrator mode (rather than update from the device manager). Dowloaded the latest drivers from my mobo's website as well, guess there were already installed by I did it to be sure. Bios version is F13, but F14 and F15 are described as containing minor updates so I'm not gonna bother with it. Had to reinstall my launchers since even though I had installed them on the nvme ssd there were files on the OS SSD. Steam managed to fix itself but for Gog and Uplay I deleted the files and did a clean install. No point in doing it for games since I don't have any installed at the moment, except WD2 which I have already reinstalled a bunch of times, even on the HDD once, to no avail.
• While I tested WD2 yesterday I checked task manager and noticed the CPU was boosting significantly higher than UserBenchmark - which I ran immediately after going home and reinstalling the drivers - said it did. So I think it was just USB screwing up.

- Using OCCT, I tested my CPU, memory and GPU in 5-minutes increments, no errors detected, everything appears to be stable. The only weird thing was that the "maximum supported memory clock" was only 1333mhz but apparently since it's dual channel you gotta multiply by 2 so it's fine. CPU-Z says it's "XMP 2.0" compatible so I'm gonna check if that's enabled.

• I play exclusively in fullscreen mode.
• Funny enough, using "Adaptive vsync" together with Triple-buffering seemed to smoothen WD's 2 performance with my old 60hz display (it still stuttered here and there but not constantly). With the new 144hz g sync display I have though, it doesn't do squat. I have never gamed with a second monitor.

Gonna try out a few other not too demanding games (Doom etc) and then call it a day. “Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement” said CS Lewis, well I've learned a lot on my road to the perfect gaming experience so it wasn't exactly wasted time.

 

[RTX 2080]

@RTX 2080 @Ash95 @Phaaze88 gonna answer you with a single post and then I'll be on my way because I have already taken up too much of your time, you've been very sweet and I thank you sincerely for your patience.

• The tech guy gave me Corsair 3000mhz DDR4, said it didn't matter if the max speed was above what my system could handle, he said "It's the processor who decides", whatever that means.
• Windows being reset means my GPU driver reverted to a much older version so I used the latest one from the nvidia website, installed it directly by activating the package in administrator mode (rather than update from the device manager). Dowloaded the latest drivers from my mobo's website as well, guess there were already installed by I did it to be sure. Bios version is F13, but F14 and F15 are described as containing minor updates so I'm not gonna bother with it. Had to reinstall my launchers since even though I had installed them on the nvme ssd there were files on the OS SSD. Steam managed to fix itself but for Gog and Uplay I deleted the files and did a clean install. No point in doing it for games since I don't have any installed at the moment, except WD2 which I have already reinstalled a bunch of times, even on the HDD once, to no avail.
• While I tested WD2 yesterday I checked task manager and noticed the CPU was boosting significantly higher than UserBenchmark - which I ran immediately after going home and reinstalling the drivers - said it did. So I think it was just USB screwing up.

- Using OCCT, I tested my CPU, memory and GPU in 5-minutes increments, no errors detected, everything appears to be stable. The only weird thing was that the "maximum supported memory clock" was only 1333mhz but apparently since it's dual channel you gotta multiply by 2 so it's fine. CPU-Z says it's "XMP 2.0" compatible so I'm gonna check if that's enabled.

• I play exclusively in fullscreen mode.
• Funny enough, using "Adaptive vsync" together with Triple-buffering seemed to smoothen WD's 2 performance with my old 60hz display (it still stuttered here and there but not constantly). With the new 144hz g sync display I have though, it doesn't do squat. I have never gamed with a second monitor.

Gonna try out a few other not too demanding games (Doom etc) and then call it a day. “Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement” said CS Lewis, well I've learned a lot on my road to the perfect gaming experience so it wasn't exactly wasted time.

Yeah, that's the last suggestion I have, make sure that XMP is enabled in the BIOS (it allows your RAM to run at the highest speed your CPU/motherboard will allow). That's what your tech guy meant by "It's the processor who decides" lol.