When play games GPU usage hits 99% but captured videos of same games consume 5% if played any video player. Why?!!!

[Alexander Hector Dom]

QUESTION: In my GeForce GTX 770 Afterburner shows GPU hits its Max in games but a Huge GPU Utilization Drop if captured game videos are played in a hardware accelerated video player… GPU usage drops from 99% (in game usage) to 5% (in video player usage) and Video Memory drops from 2033MB(in game usage) to less than 300MB(in video player usage) … Why?!!!

FULL DETAILS OF MY QUESTION: Hello guys, I am gonna ask you a question which is not a problem but I am very curious to know. Sure as hell some of you will find it a bit annoying cause perhaps it’s a very simple matter. But the real thing is I know nothing about this and my question bugs me whenever I play very high quality videos. That’s why I’m here cause most definitely it’s the number one place to have a true perfect answer.

My GPU is MSI NVidia GeForce GTX 770 Gaming OC. Well I know it’s not a great GPU but its running fine for me. My question is – When I play any graphics hungry 3D game MSI Afterburner shows GPU is being used 99% and Video Memory more than 1900 MB loaded, even sometimes it shows GPU 100% in use and V Memory crossed 2033 MB in overclocked. In Far Cry 3 and other high end games I captured some in game videos by GeForce Shadow Play with ultra-settings. On game GPU was used 100% and with huge V memory load but after capturing when I play the videos on any video player software like KM Player with fully hardware acceleration Afterburner shows GPU is being used 5%... and V memory loaded less than 300 MB!!! I am using Purchased CoreAVC video decoder for hardware acceleration and it says NVidia CUDA is being used and that’s why CPU stays almost idle. Videos were captured in highest quality settings in both Shadow Play and in Game video settings, so captured videos quality (and off course the size in my hard disk) is this much high that it will be almost impossible to identify that are these running in game or in a video player software just as videos.

So dear friends I just want to know the reason of this Massive GPU Utilization Drop when I run those captured videos on a video player, but same videos if I see in game GPU almost hits its max. 100% same quality but GPU Utilization drops from 100% to 5% and Memory releases 2033 MB to less than 300 MB!!! WHY Guys???!!! How???!!! Please inform me…
And lastly I know my question size is Super Massive, I could write it much more shorter way but simply wanted to make my question to you guys as clear as possible.
Your kind answers will be very much appreciated and offcourse very much knowledgeable for me.

Thank you so much in advance.
Regards-
Hector.

 

[nikoli707]

while gaming the gpu is rendering via shaders and texture units. the recorded video is already fully rendered... the gpu isn't really working too hard.

 

[caqde]

Reasons abound as far as things go. Memory wise the difference is due to the game holding the games state. (Unit HP, Locations of objects, Ammo, etc) The Video holds none of this information it only holds information about what color a pixel is on the screen. (Different codecs can make this a bit more complex with compression techniques but that is the main idea behind it). When a game renders it has a lot more information about the scene it knows where every object is in the world and has information about where you are viewing the world from. Using that it draws the scene from your viewpoint and has to correctly display objects in the correct viewing order (perspective an object in front is drawn over an object behind it). These techniques along with lighting, Anti Aliasing, and other effects take up a lot of GPU time the video holds the completed product of all this work.

BTW if you want videos to use more GPU power you would need to use MPC-HC and the Madvr render path. My GPU hits about 25% while viewing 1080P video.

 

[Alexander Hector Dom]

while gaming the gpu is rendering via shaders and texture units. the recorded video is already fully rendered... the gpu isn't really working too hard.

Thank you so much nikoli707. I thought videos also need full rendering, I had no idea that those are already rendered.

 

[Alexander Hector Dom]

Reasons abound as far as things go. Memory wise the difference is due to the game holding the games state. (Unit HP, Locations of objects, Ammo, etc) The Video holds none of this information it only holds information about what color a pixel is on the screen. (Different codecs can make this a bit more complex with compression techniques but that is the main idea behind it). When a game renders it has a lot more information about the scene it knows where every object is in the world and has information about where you are viewing the world from. Using that it draws the scene from your viewpoint and has to correctly display objects in the correct viewing order (perspective an object in front is drawn over an object behind it). These techniques along with lighting, Anti Aliasing, and other effects take up a lot of GPU time the video holds the completed product of all this work.

BTW if you want videos to use more GPU power you would need to use MPC-HC and the Madvr render path. My GPU hits about 25% while viewing 1080P video.

I came here cause I thought it’s the most perfect place to get my answer and I was so right. Amazing answer caqde, no other words can make it more informative. I was wondering that how only rendering can make this massive difference but now I know from your crystal clear answer that rendering has tons of things to do. I had no idea about all this... Thank you so much for sparing me from my long time buggy question. And yeah, tried MAD VR as you suggested… It’s INSANE! Had me think I am playing Crysis 3.

Thank you once again.

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