[SOLVED] High Cpu usage in games - Need input

[MrVic87]

High cpu usage is the one area in pc gaming that I despise the most. It happens to me mostly with Ubisoft titles. I have seen some report non-Ubi games like BlackOps4 having high cpu usage as well. And it's absolutely not any system processes that causes this. It's the game itself.

I have a high end rig, 8700k paired with an Asus Maximums XI, a 1080Ti, 16gb or 3200mhz ram, and a 1440p 144hz monitor, all on Win 10. But games like AC Origins, R6 Siege, and others simply jacks up the cpu usage to max out at 100%. The more fps I get (up to monitor's refresh rate since I use a fps limiter), the worse it gets. I can run Witcher 3 at max settings (hair works, etc) with no more than 45% cpu usage. From what I have experienced, AMD processors with extra cores (8 or more) seems to leverage games far better, often about 40% less than Intel processors.

Now most would think, with the specs I posted, I and many others with similar setups should not be having this problem? I am simply convinced that anyone who runs similar games that doesn't suffer the stuttering or lag, most likely isn't monitoring their cpu usage. It could be possible that their cpu usage is at 90% or less, to where they would never experience poor performance or notice, as long as the game is running fine.

So I am asking anyone who is not suffering high cpu usage running games like AC Origins, Division, R6 Siege, or BlackOps 4, to run the games again but with their task manager on, and post the following:

What cpu usage the game is actually using in their system?

What are your specs?

If possible, is there any solid guides that are available to lower or fix this?

I have tried nearly every possible fix I could find on the net. From disabling services that don't need to be active, optimizing windows 10, and adding games to my antivirus exclusion lists, etc.

What am I not doing that others are to not have to deal with this annoying issue?

Thanks.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Ubisofts games tend to be unoptimised from my findings. Amd cpus typically deliver lower but more stable fps.

 

[J_E_D_70]

Some engines put more load on the cpu, some on gpu.

If you are not gpu-limited and are not using a frame limiter, the cpu will go to 100%. That is normal.

If you are seeing stutters at 100% cpu then you either need to increase the eye candy such that the gpu takes the load (including increasing the resolution scaling) or turn the frame limit down even more.

 

[MrVic87]

Ubisofts games tend to be unoptimised from my findings. Amd cpus typically deliver lower but more stable fps.

That is very true.

Some engines put more load on the cpu, some on gpu.

If you are not gpu-limited and are not using a frame limiter, the cpu will go to 100%. That is normal.

If you are seeing stutters at 100% cpu then you either need to increase the eye candy such that the gpu takes the load (including increasing the resolution scaling) or turn the frame limit down even more.

I understand the need to lowr the limit further, but that would be hampering when it comes to PvP like games. The suggestion to raise the graphical quality, I have never thought of doing that and seems interesting. I have seen in some games where the gpu is not maxed out. I might have to try that.

Do any of you play any of these titles and have to deal with this in any way? Thanks for the replies.

 

[J_E_D_70]

I have AC Origins but it’s not installed. I mainly play Battlefield V and its about 70% usage on the busiest threads with my gtx 1070 at 100%. I plan to get a 2080 (~ a 1080ti) and assume that would run me up to 100% cpu again.

When I had a 3570k it was at 100% in BF1 with the 1070. Just changing to the 8700k with mce on gave me an additional 20-ish fps.

I would recommend a really good cooler and seeing how far you can push an overclock.

 

[MrVic87]

I have AC Origins but it’s not installed. I mainly play Battlefield V and its about 70% usage on the busiest threads with my gtx 1070 at 100%. I plan to get a 2080 (~ a 1080ti) and assume that would run me up to 100% cpu again.

When I had a 3570k it was at 100% in BF1 with the 1070. Just changing to the 8700k with mce on gave me an additional 20-ish fps.

I would recommend a really good cooler and seeing how far you can push an overclock.

I'm sorry for not including that I do have a Corsair AIO, and I am overclocked to 5ghz with mce disabled. I used to have a 4.9ghz oc because the Temps were a little high for 5ghz at the time. The difference was I updated to the latest bios, did the overclock again and now it's stable so far. My 1080Ti aslo has a +60 core +450 memory oc as well.

I ran bfv a couple months back and that game did shoot up to 100% Cpu usage just from the loading screen! In game it dropped to 90% and fluctuates up and down. So you might definitely get that with your new card. Hopefully you don't!

Frames, Temps, and overall stability was never an issue in any of my overclocks. It's just the high Cpu usage that these games use that really triggers me. I noticed this since I first played Division a few years back and monitored usage in most games since. When I see other people with similar builds or lower claim they have no issues running these games, with some often gloat about it, it made me wonder if I was just a setting or two away from putting this issue to bed.

 

[J_E_D_70]

Ideally the GPU is at 100% and the CPU is somewhere below that - 90% is probably fine. Like I said, try increasing the resolution scaling and find a balance between eye candy and framerate.

Or, try turning off HPET and see if that changes the stuttering behavior at high CPU usage:

Try changing HPET settings to improve your PC's performance - gHacks Tech News

Find out how to detect timer settings on a Windows PC, to change them to improve performance, and to measure the performance using benchmarks.

www.ghacks.net

and

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/6nfvxf/easy_way_to_disable_hpet_to_raise_performance/

 

[TerryLaze]

So I am asking anyone who is not suffering high cpu usage running games like AC Origins, Division, R6 Siege, or BlackOps 4, to run the games again but with their task manager on, and post the following:

What cpu usage the game is actually using in their system?

What are your specs?

100% CPU usage does not mean automatic stuttering.
At the resolution and FPS you are playing at you put an immens strain on your system's I/O ,you are saying it yourself it get's worse the faster the game runs.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWgRCs_ele8

The division is just a hot mess,if you look at this video you can see 100% usage putting in a FPS limit does not lower the usage it's still 100% but the lag improves by a lot,applying the fix to the threads still keeps the CPU at 100% but no more lag.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUsPOTv_pu8

 

[MrVic87]

Ideally the GPU is at 100% and the CPU is somewhere below that - 90% is probably fine. Like I said, try increasing the resolution scaling and find a balance between eye candy and framerate.

Or, try turning off HPET and see if that changes the stuttering behavior at high CPU usage:

Try changing HPET settings to improve your PC's performance - gHacks Tech News

Find out how to detect timer settings on a Windows PC, to change them to improve performance, and to measure the performance using benchmarks.

www.ghacks.net

and

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/6nfvxf/easy_way_to_disable_hpet_to_raise_performance/

This is truly helpful. I will definitely try this tonight and get back to you on any results! Thanks for this.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

When I run GTA V with vsync limit at 60fps my gtx 1050 stays around 60% and my Ryzen 3 1200 pegs to 100% and the game stutters. If i let my fps unlimited i get about 85 fps and my gpu runs up to 80% and cpu still maxes out, but my fps is more stable.

 

[MrVic87]

100% CPU usage does not mean automatic stuttering.
At the resolution and FPS you are playing at you put an immens strain on your system's I/O ,you are saying it yourself it get's worse the faster the game runs.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWgRCs_ele8

The division is just a hot mess,if you look at this video you can see 100% usage putting in a FPS limit does not lower the usage it's still 100% but the lag improves by a lot,applying the fix to the threads still keeps the CPU at 100% but no more lag.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUsPOTv_pu8

Are these your videos? Thanks for posting these!! They truly show just how bad the problem really is.

Origins would be fine but as soon as you reach the first city (Iwsa?) it maxes Cpu usage. Division as you said, is awful, along with other PvP games where high fps makes a major difference. The stuttering isn't the major issue for me more so than the high Cpu usage, leaving no headroom for anything else that may need resources. If I steam or record, x264 encoding, so stuttering occurs frequently. I would be forced to use Gpu encoder. The quality is noticeably better on x264. It was worse on an i5 but I thought the extra cores and ipc on the 8700k would not have this issue. I wonder if the 9900k owners have this problem. I'm assuming no since AMD 8 core cpus didn't have this problem.

 

[MrVic87]

When I run GTA V with vsync limit at 60fps my gtx 1050 stays around 60% and my Ryzen 3 1200 pegs to 100% and the game stutters. If i let my fps unlimited i get about 85 fps and my gpu runs up to 80% and cpu still maxes out, but my fps is more stable.

GTA is like a wicked stepchild. Games like it, with PvP, I don't try to do too much tweaking since I prefer max fps then quality. Siege comes to mind. I'm sure the cpu load would be lower, but it's not as bad as Division or WD2.

Ideally the GPU is at 100% and the CPU is somewhere below that - 90% is probably fine. Like I said, try increasing the resolution scaling and find a balance between eye candy and framerate.

Or, try turning off HPET and see if that changes the stuttering behavior at high CPU usage:

Try changing HPET settings to improve your PC's performance - gHacks Tech News

Find out how to detect timer settings on a Windows PC, to change them to improve performance, and to measure the performance using benchmarks.

www.ghacks.net

and

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/6nfvxf/easy_way_to_disable_hpet_to_raise_performance/

Man, you have given me faith in humanity again lol. No but seriously, I did both of what you suggested here. I disabled the HPET, though I'm not sure how effective this was because I didn't see too much improvement. However, I changed graphical settings on a few games to make them more GPU bound than CPU:

AC Origins: I maxed everything at 1440p, forcing full load on GPU. The cpu usage was slightly better. So I then used the max preset (minur motion blur, I hate that), and could not believe that the cpu usage was not going past 66%. It's still a bit too high, but it's an improvement if you can compare to TerryLaze's video. The GPU load while moving around the city would spike up and down from 78-100%. But CPU usage remained below 66%. I'll have to keep testing. For the hell of it, I tried 4k resolutions as well. And while the CPU load is further reduced, I have 0 interest in gaming at that resolution, not with the frames I'd experience (30-45fps). The fps was about 65-70.

Division: The game that started it all. Did a similar adjustment to graphic quality. CPU usage would remain under 63% but there was some stuttering. I enabled/disabled VSync (which I never like to in games), enabled/disabled reduce latency setting the game has, and somehow the stuttering was gone. The fps was about 80-90.

Far Cry Primal/Far Cry 5: Both of these games didn't have massive load on CPU compared to the other 2, however, it did reduce load.

WatchDogs 2: This is the only game that is optimized poorly, which is unfortunate, because I enjoy playing it. I upscaled to 4k back to 1440p, changed presets, enabled/disabled vsync, maxed shadows then lowered, and each time, the cpu load for game would shoot up to 96% for about 5-7 seconds then go back down to 75-78%. Fps for game is about 53-61. The engine just asks for too much.

I will need to do further testing on some of these games but it's a great start. It's the first time that a good solution is suggested and I want to thank you and everyone who posted. If anyone else has any more suggestions, please post. I'd like to hear from anyone! Thanks!!

 

[J_E_D_70]

Good deal! Glad to help