Question When using integrated graphics to play games, is the GPU still handling some processes?

[Zinni]

In the PvEvP game Evil Dead The Game, there is an issue similar to Elden Ring where enemies (and sometimes teammates) are invisible. You can't interact with them, but they can interact with you, meaning their hits connect on you but yours don't on them. There's an assumption that there's a rendering issue with Nvidia cards. This doesn't seem to happen with Xbox and Playstation players, and I'm assuming AMD GPU players either.

I just tested my integrated graphics. I have a 13900k. I plugged my monitor into the motherboard's DisplayPort. I went into Nvidia Control Panel and changed any available setting off of the Nvidia card to the CPU or auto, like setting PhysX to CPU.

It didn't seem to fix the problem. It might've lessened it a little, but some characters were still ending up invisible. What I was most surprised about was how many fps I was getting. I was getting upwards of 300 fps, with an average around 250 and dips around 140. Is the i9 that powerful? Those look like my GPU's frames.

 

[hotaru.hino]

If your computer has multiple GPUs, Windows actually has the ability to have an application render using one GPU or the other. While this is common with laptops, it's also available for desktops. However, whether or not Windows knows to render "high performance" applications on the video card on a desktop even if the only monitors are connected to the iGPU is another thing. I'm starting to suspect this is the case, because there's no way that Intel HD 770 is getting 300 FPS in anything.

 

[Zinni]

If your computer has multiple GPUs, Windows actually has the ability to have an application render using one GPU or the other. While this is common with laptops, it's also available for desktops. However, whether or not Windows knows to render "high performance" applications on the video card on a desktop even if the only monitors are connected to the iGPU is another thing. I'm starting to suspect this is the case, because there's no way that Intel HD 770 is getting 300 FPS in anything.

Before switching to the iGPU, I did significantly lower the in game graphics settings to see if that would fix the invisibility issue. That supposedly helped in Elden Ring. I didn't check the fps while running it that way off the Nvidia GPU.

But I did watch a video displaying the fps of various games while running off the i9 and some games like Fortnite (once the settings were lowered) were in the high 200s, as well as Valorant. Oddly enough CS:GO was getting around 70+. Spiderman was getting 12 and looked horrible. Forza and Red Dead 2 were in the 20s/30s. GTA5 was in the 70s oddly enough.

Besides physically removing my Nvidia card, is there any way I can ensure that Windows will not feed any tasks to it?

 

[Zinni]

You were absolutely right @hotaru.hino. I changed everything I could in Nvidia Control Panel. I don't have the option to select preferred graphics processor for some reason though. I also changed the Windows' graphics settings to "power saving" which it says uses the iGPU.

So when playing through the iGPU just now, I checked task manager and it showed 50% usage for the iGPU and 50% for the GPU. I shut it down and unplugged the power to the GPU. When I got back into the game it was a slideshow. Mostly below 10 fps, with spikes of 15.

 

[TerryLaze]

In the PvEvP game Evil Dead The Game, there is an issue similar to Elden Ring where enemies (and sometimes teammates) are invisible. You can't interact with them, but they can interact with you, meaning their hits connect on you but yours don't on them. There's an assumption that there's a rendering issue with Nvidia cards.

If it were a rendering issue than you would still be able to interact and your shots would still connect you just wouldn't see anything.
Rendering has nothing to so with the game logic.
It could still be caused by the GPU or its drivers but it's not an issue of rendering.

 

[Zinni]

If it were a rendering issue than you would still be able to interact and your shots would still connect you just wouldn't see anything.
Rendering has nothing to so with the game logic.
It could still be caused by the GPU or its drivers but it's not an issue of rendering.

What someone in the game's community theorized is that it happens because hit detection in the game is client side, but I don't know enough about games to say one way or the other. I think he came up with that because Elden Ring's issue has been said to be the result of a rendering problem. When I see footage of it, it looks exactly like what happens in Evil Dead. But I don't know if in Elden Ring you can attack the enemies while they're invisible. The few videos I've seen don't show the enemies taking damage.

What I experience in Evil Dead is, enemies spawn in and their models get stuck frozen in place right after they spawn, while basically their offense collision boxes roam free and hit me. The game has lock-on mechanics for melee and that takes effect on their invisible aspect, but not on their frozen models. If I hit their frozen models, blood will come out and all the appropriate sound effects play; enemy grunts, the weapon connecting, etc. I am not sure if they take damage though. When they take damage, damage numbers come out of them, and if they are taking damage when I hit their frozen models, I have a feeling those numbers would be coming out of the invisible part of them. But most of the time enemies spawn in from a distance, and I run up to their frozen models and hit them, leaving the invisible part of them too far away.

BUT I have found a solution and it is the exact opposite of what people suggest for Elden Ring. Instead of lowering my in-game graphic settings, I maxed them out and played for an hour with not one invisible enemy. Now, I don't know if it's because I have a much lower frame rate (250 - 300fps down to 140 - 180), which might give the game some breathing room to calculate, or if one (or all) of the settings being too low causes the game to bug out.

I'm tempted to test each setting one by one, but that will probably take too long.