[SOLVED] Low GPU usage in some games(2-10%)

Apr 30, 2021
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Hello,
Ladies and Gentlemen!
I have some issue with my system. 2 weeks ago I played Battlefield 5 on middle settings with stable fps, but then I downloaded Warzone. I was happy to play it again (i played it a year ago on this laptop), but, my gameplay was awful. Like i had not fully loaded textures, freezes, sluttering, and fps drop to 1 - 2 fps. The CPU time and GPU time were extremly high. I was confused and thought that it can be go away by itself (i had this problem once 7 monts ago, but it just dissapeared after i restarted my laptop) and returned to Battlefield. In battlefield i meeted the same issue(wild freezes, fps drops to 0). In attempts to find out why do i have this problem i found nothing, but:
CPU usage in this games was about 70-80% (temperature about 65 Celsium)
Ram usage was about 95%(i have only 8 Gb, but i play games on middle settings and it never was a problem)
I decided that its all my HDD. But once a month i do an HDD test, and now the results were like usual, nothing changed. BUT my GPU usage in this games only 4-5%! Dont understand why.
My specs:
Lenovo Legion Y7000,
Core i7 9750H, 8 Gb RAM, RTX 2060.
P.S: I meet this problem only in Warzone and Battlefield 5. Other games completly fine as usual. So i can still play DOTA 2 on high settings, GTA V, Death Stranding, Naruto Ultimate Ninja(Also performance in this games didnt changed). I tried to update my drivers, then downgrade them, change my powersupply settings, nothing helps. Can someone help me please, i just wanna cry about it, cause don`t know how to deal with it.
Thx for reply!
 
Solution
yeah, i tried warzone with low settings - nothing changed.
It sounds like you are CPU limited, so you are bottlenecked. If you change the graphics to lower settings and didn't improve then the GPU isn't the bottleneck. The laptop is 1080p, which is very much CPU bound.

In Warzone, try running DLSS to Quality or high so it runs at 2K or higher, which should put more on your GPU then CPU to see if that improves things. I seen a good improvement in my Warzone FPS by running DLSS even with my 3080 which can handle 2K easily.
Have you tired to run Warzone on Low just to see if it plays ok ? If it does then you have a bottleneck somewhere...if it's still bad then I would try uninstalling it and download it again.

Did Warzone go through optimizing shaders ?

How full is your HHD ?
 
Apr 30, 2021
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Have you tired to run Warzone on Low just to see if it plays ok ? If it does then you have a bottleneck somewhere...if it's still bad then I would try uninstalling it and download it again.

Did Warzone go through optimizing shaders ?

How full is your HHD ?
yeah, i tried warzone with low settings - nothing changed. I reinstalled all shaders, that didn`t help too, so i reinstalled warzone. Did similar with BFV, but no improvements. My HDD is now 30% full.
 

tecmo34

Administrator
Moderator
yeah, i tried warzone with low settings - nothing changed.
It sounds like you are CPU limited, so you are bottlenecked. If you change the graphics to lower settings and didn't improve then the GPU isn't the bottleneck. The laptop is 1080p, which is very much CPU bound.

In Warzone, try running DLSS to Quality or high so it runs at 2K or higher, which should put more on your GPU then CPU to see if that improves things. I seen a good improvement in my Warzone FPS by running DLSS even with my 3080 which can handle 2K easily.
 
Solution
A 6c/12t chip won't be bottle-necking the system...that 2060 should be at 100%. Something else is going on to choke the 2060.

Have you looked to see how many CPU cores are active when you try to play Warzone ?
Are you running the nVidia profile for Warzone in your driver settings ?
Is raytracing turned on ?
 
Apr 30, 2021
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It sounds like you are CPU limited, so you are bottlenecked. If you change the graphics to lower settings and didn't improve then the GPU isn't the bottleneck. The laptop is 1080p, which is very much CPU bound.

In Warzone, try running DLSS to Quality or high so it runs at 2K or higher, which should put more on your GPU then CPU to see if that improves things. I seen a good improvement in my Warzone FPS by running DLSS even with my 3080 which can handle 2K easily.
Make sense, but here is one BUT. Why this mad stuff going with Battlefield too? 2 Weeks ago i played it on middle settings , and everything was fine :(
 

tecmo34

Administrator
Moderator
Can Windows update be the reason? This stuff started in day or two after KB5001330 or KB4023057
There has been reported issues with latest updated impacting GPU performance, so could be.

Also, it could be temperature related (depending on where you are). We are starting to get into spring time in the US so temperatures are going up, which brings more heat. With it being a laptop, may be the ambient temperatures have gone up where you play, which puts more heat on the laptop. If system temps go up, it will throttle down performance once reach a certain level.
 
Apr 30, 2021
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There has been reported issues with latest updated impacting GPU performance, so could be.

Also, it could be temperature related (depending on where you are). We are starting to get into spring time in the US so temperatures are going up, which brings more heat. With it being a laptop, may be the ambient temperatures have gone up where you play, which puts more heat on the laptop. If system temps go up, it will throttle down performance once reach a certain level.
I dont think that the reason is here. I am in North Russia now and we have -10 Cels. All temperatures are normal for laptop i think. CPU is always below 70 - 75. GPU is 60 -65, HDD is 44-46.
 

FoxVoxDK

Distinguished
First type recovery in search bar, enter, see if you can roll Windows 10 back, this is NOT possible if your Windows has updated more than 10 days ago.

Hit Start, and Settings(the little gear), then Update & Security, top left "Uninstall Updates".

Secondly get HWinfo64 run it, play the games giving you trouble, check the maximum CPU core temps and GPU temps. If you wish take a screen shot of ALL the data, with any collapsed lists expanded, upload to Imgur and link here. Might give other information to help you along.
 
Apr 30, 2021
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First type recovery in search bar, enter, see if you can roll Windows 10 back, this is NOT possible if your Windows has updated more than 10 days ago.

Hit Start, and Settings(the little gear), then Update & Security, top left "Uninstall Updates".

Secondly get HWinfo64 run it, play the games giving you trouble, check the maximum CPU core temps and GPU temps. If you wish take a screen shot of ALL the data, with any collapsed lists expanded, upload to Imgur and link here. Might give other information to help you along.
Hello!
Okay, i completed what u sayd me to do. Installed HWinfo64 and played battlefield 5 for a 20 minutes(that was awful(fps drops from 160 to 0 every damn second)). Made screenshots. Cant register in Imgur cause of problems with number verification, so i uploaded them to Gdisk.
Here is the link : https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1fQrH_4o_DELFUOadyVsD43Z39rJFSoVw?usp=sharing
 

FoxVoxDK

Distinguished
What powerplan are you running? You aren't quite hitting your peak frequency on the CPU.
Start -> Search bar -> type Power or similar -> Edit Power plan, choose High Performance.

There's also Ultimate Performance power plan, but this is manually activated and should only be used on Desktops, not Laptops.

Never mind about the powerplan, I see you already set that, my bad.

Still your max frequency was about 3.5 GHz. Depending on the specs Lenovo put in your BIOS it should be able to hit 4.5 Ghz.

Did you remove the updates?
 
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Apr 30, 2021
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What powerplan are you running? You aren't quite hitting your peak frequency on the CPU.
Start -> Search bar -> type Power or similar -> Edit Power plan, choose High Performance.

There's also Ultimate Performance power plan, but this is manually activated and should only be used on Desktops, not Laptops.

Never mind about the powerplan, I see you already set that, my bad.

Still your max frequency was about 3.5 GHz. Depending on the specs Lenovo put in your BIOS it should be able to hit 4.5 Ghz.

Did you remove the updates?
Yeah, my powerplan is turned on high perfomance. Yeah, the original clockspeed of CPU is 4.5 with turbo boost. But with original settings my CPU was very hot (like easily 90 in Rainbow six Siege), so i undervolted it and decreased turboboost clock speed to 3.5 Mghz. I did it 5 months ago, and my gaming performance was pretty good untill i installed update (or Warzone or smth else(idk what caused my problems 2 weeks ago)).
P.S: I removed all settings that i made when undervolted CPU, and problem still exists.
The main question is why this stuff happens only in Battlefield and Warzone. Why i can still play GTA V, Death Stranding and Cyberpunk :0
and yes, i removed updates using the advanced settings in @recover@ tab in windows settings
 
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Apr 30, 2021
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Okay, i have some more info. I tried to use preset in Furmark benchmark and my score was ONLY 746 points on 1920*1080 preset. And funniest fact that when i change antianialising nothing changes. I have 13 fps in this benchmark. I made this benchmark earlier and results were always good(stable framerate at list, forgot score).
P.S: false alarm! my laptop was not charged XD (only when made a mecnhmark testing)
So i think, that the problem now isnt in GPU
 
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If you made any changes in the BIOS I would return it to stock and then do a clean install of Windows to resolve the issue. If it persists after that you should look at doing a full cleaning of the laptop cooling system to make sure the CPU is not suffering restricted airflow.
 
Apr 30, 2021
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If you made any changes in the BIOS I would return it to stock and then do a clean install of Windows to resolve the issue. If it persists after that you should look at doing a full cleaning of the laptop cooling system to make sure the CPU is not suffering restricted airflow.
did today clean windows installation. Downloading now games to test. Will be very sad if problem still alive ^-^
 
Apr 30, 2021
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Thx for all people here and for advices that u gave me! I did clean Windows installation and all problems gone. So i can play BFV and Warzone without any issues! So happy, cause it means that it was software issue, not hardware! (I installed Windows from my old ISO from August 2020, so its old, but i dont want to update now)
Thx for all of u!