[SOLVED] My laptop doesn't use GPU's all power on Witcher 3

Oct 30, 2020
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So im playing witcher 3, on medium-low or medium-high graphics settings with 45-55 fps average. On task manager when im playing witcher 3, CPU usage is around 60% - 70%, if im around a lot of npcs or something it gets even higher like 90 - 100, but GPU usage is around 10% - 20%, why ? I'm pretty sure if my computer used more power of my gpu i could definitely play with 60fps stable. I think my pc specs are enough for it. But it is just not using it. I tried a lot of solutions but nothing worked for me, why ? How can i fix that ?
Screenshot of my Task Manager: View: https://imgur.com/a/oOw7Rar


About my pc( its a laptop, i referred to it as pc on post );
It's msi GL73 9SC so you can see all of its specs here, https://www.msi.com/Laptop/GL73-9SC/Specification
Up to 9th Gen. Intel® Core™ i7 Processor
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1650 with 4GB GDDR5

I update my gpu drivers thorugh nvidia geforce experience app,
My windows is up to date,
My cpu and all intel stuff is up to date, through intel driver support assistant app, which notifies me if there are new updates.

Unlike on my other laptops, i did not give this laptop to a professional to install drivers, windows etc. But im not that bad on these stuff ( i guess ). So i installed windows in a clean way by following instructions, never encountered problems while doing it. And then installed drivers (which are only audio, nvidia and intel drivers and chipset driver found on my exact laptop's required drivers list https://www.msi.com/Laptop/support/GL73-9SC#down-driver&Win10 64 [i downloaded chipset & realtek card driver from here] i dont know if i should've downloaded more stuff ).

I fiddled with in-game graphic and video settings (vsync on-off), doesn't change anything about gpu usage.

I chose high performance nvidia... thing from nvidia control panel for witcher3. Well the app should use GPU now, what is holding it back from using >50% gpu instead of cpu ? I don't know how to check if its actually using it, but on nvidia gpu activity, it says theres no app running on this GPU when the game is not open. When i open witcher 3 it does show witcher3.exe on gpu activity. So this should mean that witcher is running on gpu. Just my pc does not want to use more resources ? Maybe its about my laptop not getting enough power ? I don't know and i don't know how to tell if it gets enough or not. But on another game it does use my GPU more and can get very high fps:

!IMPORTANT PART: On "Overwatch" (another 3D game that is gpu intensive) task manager shows that it uses 30% - 50% GPU average, it becomes 80% GPU if i make FPS cap 240, instead of current 80, and only 20% CPU. So overwatch is fully utilizing my whole GPU power. Hmmm... Why witcher 3 is not using my GPU as much as overwatch then ?

My power settings that you manage from a windows window is all set to performance mode.

Did I check my gpu / cpu temp ?
I know that if temp is too high my pc wont use full power of my gpu or cpu so hardware doesnt overheat and get damaged, but the moment i open the game (when pc is not even close to being overheated) task manager stats are same, cpu 50% to 100%, gpu about 10%. When i play for some time my pc can reach to max 70 degrees celcius. If i havent cleaned fans of laptop in long time ( i have 2 cats, it gets full of cat hair ) it can reach to 75-80 but i dont let that happen, clean it every couple months. It has not been 1 years since i bought the laptop ( i guess, maybe its been 1 year ).

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Some more unnecessary details, i wanted to give them maybe they give some clue towards identfying what the problem is:
On league of legends, my game randomly crashes in first 2 minutes of the match without any errors, does not happen every match too. It randomly decides to crash without any errors on my 5th game of that day in 1:27 mins after the match started for example. Completely random, i ticketed riot (creators of the game) and even they couldn't fix it. Reinstalling game did not fix it either. That problem still exist to this day. I'm not asking about how to fix it here, just wanted to tell about it so maybe its connected with something wrong with my pc. Or its just a random software error, league is known for its spaghetti codes. That problem never happens on other games so probably its game's fault and not my pc's ( i guess ? )
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So thats all, i will be so glad if someone who knows what hes doing could help me identify what is causing that and how to solve it. I may be missing something so simple, like an option in nvidia control panel or the problem may be bigger (hardware issue) i dont know. But i can provide more information, screenshots if needed for you to help me. Thanks.
 
Solution
I will as soon as possible, thank you. But i don't get how thats holding my computer back from running witcher 3 using more GPU instead of CPU like it does on overwatch ? Will bringing CPU to normal temperatures by applying new thermal paste solve my issue ? Is it about CPU being too hot ?
I heard that thermal paste only does 1-2 degrees of temp difference on forums, but my cpu temp is about 100 when playing, its literally burning like you said. What the hell is going on inside my laptop ??

When you play a game, your CPU requests data from your hard drive/RAM and renders certain parts of a frame. It then sends the pre-rendered frame to the GPU so that the GPU can do the portion of the frame rendering that it is responsible for...
Oct 30, 2020
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Idont think its about temps because stats are the same the moment i open the game, and CPU is not always 100% working very hard, its around 50% - 90% you know depends on how intense the action, npc amount around me is. That being said i did not check CPU temp, only checked GPU. And of course i want to check it if you guys suggested. Which software should i use to monitor CPU temperature ? I googled it but there were couple of softwares and i don't know if i should just trust and download any of them, isn't there a official intel software for it ?
 
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Oct 30, 2020
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if the cpu is 100%, that the issue
what the cpu temp?
So i guess you are right, i checked CPU temps with HWMonitor, when i was on google chrome, watching twitch streams it was around 60-70 degrees celcius, then i closed chrome and other open apps and it suddenly jumped to 90-95 for a second or two, then got to 60-70 again. While playing witcher, as expected its always high, i guess hot enough to almost damage the component right ? 90-100degrees.

View: https://imgur.com/a/aFm3eCu


So is that the only problem ? If i change my thermal paste etc. and somehow make cpu temp go back to normal, is the problem solved ? Well on other games (like overwatch) CPU is not even under that much stress. Game simply uses GPU, if i set overwatch to use intel processor it would load up CPU as well (or would it ?).


But i heard that cpu sends things to gpu aand whatever i dont know what im talking about. I'm not educated on that. So any clues ? What do i do next ?

Edit: More info on how my CPU Temps change, its 55-60 while doing nothing and Cpu usage shows 1% - 5% on task manager. If open a vid on new tab to, you know use more cpu, CPU usage gets up to 40 - 50% and temp goes up to 80 -95 until it loads the page (i mean for 1 second maybe). Then they are suddenly back to normal while im watching the vid. Well there are a lot of Temperature values here and idk what they are (package, core 0, core 1...) so im not talking specifically one of them. Just in general how they go up and down together. I shared some screenshots so they should help i guess. They change so fast is that normal ? Like if im only looking at HWMonitor all values quickly go back to 60, but i alt tab and continue typing this comment right now, and check back, Package value is at 84 Celcius. If i alt tab again and only look at HWMonitor they all go back to 60 again in like 1-2 secs. GPU temp was never changing that rapidly so thats why im asking.

Edit: Screenshot of temps while playing witcher was not uploaded on imgur link for some reason, so here it is:
View: https://imgur.com/a/K0rlcMf
 
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Adam65

Great
Nov 29, 2020
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Thoose thermals are not looking good, 100 degrees is like, BURNING, your laptop is not going at its max clock because it has thermal issues, you need to buy a great thermal paste and apply it
 
Oct 30, 2020
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Thoose thermals are not looking good, 100 degrees is like, BURNING, your laptop is not going at its max clock because it has thermal issues, you need to buy a great thermal paste and apply it
I will as soon as possible, thank you. But i don't get how thats holding my computer back from running witcher 3 using more GPU instead of CPU like it does on overwatch ? Will bringing CPU to normal temperatures by applying new thermal paste solve my issue ? Is it about CPU being too hot ?
I heard that thermal paste only does 1-2 degrees of temp difference on forums, but my cpu temp is about 100 when playing, its literally burning like you said. What the hell is going on inside my laptop ??
 
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I will as soon as possible, thank you. But i don't get how thats holding my computer back from running witcher 3 using more GPU instead of CPU like it does on overwatch ? Will bringing CPU to normal temperatures by applying new thermal paste solve my issue ? Is it about CPU being too hot ?
I heard that thermal paste only does 1-2 degrees of temp difference on forums, but my cpu temp is about 100 when playing, its literally burning like you said. What the hell is going on inside my laptop ??

When you play a game, your CPU requests data from your hard drive/RAM and renders certain parts of a frame. It then sends the pre-rendered frame to the GPU so that the GPU can do the portion of the frame rendering that it is responsible for which is then displayed on your screen. Thus, if your CPU isn't fast enough, certain types of games will overwhelm your CPU, causing your GPU to be underutilized because it can't begin rendering a frame until it receives it from the CPU. Since your laptop's cooling solution isn't robust enough for your CPU (most aren't), it heats up significantly when it is pushed hard. To keep itself from burning up, it reduces its core clocks which slows down how fast it renders frames, which then bottlenecks your GPU. Getting your CPU temperatures down will cause it to render faster more often, removing some of the bottleneck.
 
Solution
Oct 30, 2020
21
0
10
When you play a game, your CPU requests data from your hard drive/RAM and renders certain parts of a frame. It then sends the pre-rendered frame to the GPU so that the GPU can do the portion of the frame rendering that it is responsible for which is then displayed on your screen. Thus, if your CPU isn't fast enough, certain types of games will overwhelm your CPU, causing your GPU to be underutilized because it can't begin rendering a frame until it receives it from the CPU. Since your laptop's cooling solution isn't robust enough for your CPU (most aren't), it heats up significantly when it is pushed hard. To keep itself from burning up, it reduces its core clocks which slows down how fast it renders frames, which then bottlenecks your GPU. Getting your CPU temperatures down will cause it to render faster more often, removing some of the bottleneck.
Hey that's really helpful and answers my question thank you! I will try to solve heat problem and try again. I will post results here so anyone having same problem knows what works.
One more thing, do you have any suggestions on how to keep my cpu even cooler in my laptop? For desktops it would be just some fan upgrades and more free space i guess but idk what to do on a laptop. Sure i will apply thermal paste but what if that's not enough?
 
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