Question Why does my GPU drop usage?

[Rahraken]

I have recently been playing a game called Hunt:Showdown. I love the game even though it is early access and needs improvements... When just playing the game I pull great FPS, averaging probably 90 in the world and 100 in houses and closed spaces. I was enjoying playing the game so I decided.. Hey! Let's stream it! So, I did and while in the world I started pulling 60 fps average, and my GPU usage goes to 50-60%... What is going on? I am using the x256 encoder and these are my specs:
Ryzen 5 2600x @ 4.00Ghz
Corsair H60 Water AIO
16GB Ram @3000Mhz
EVGA GTX 1070 TI FTW
TUF Gaming X470 Motherboard
600W Thermaltake PSU
I stream at 720p30 and my cpu chills around 43C, I have never seen it go above 50C With this overclock and this cooler. My GPU unless I overclock it... which I don't, is usually around 66C and it pretty quiet. Is there something I am doing wrong? Could there not be enough power to have my cpu and gpu at high usage?

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Absolutely. Crank up those settings. You have a beast of a gamer/streamer CPU for 1080p 60hz, with high qaulity stream outputs, with practically zero dropped frames, and steady 60hz/fps gaming while you are streaming!!

At 720p/30 your system isn't even breaking a sweat. It's filing it's nails whilst watching whats going on, and laughing to itself! Put that system (or baby if you lie) under some stress, and enjoy some of the goodness it offers.

What stream software are you using? Most have presets, so just select 1080p/60 in game, set the software (streaming) to a decent setting for high stream output, and relax knowing both the gaming session and the stream output will be of excellent quality.

Your CPU can go up to 80c without trouble, your GPU can go up to 80-90c without trouble. Don't worry about temps yet. Just enjoy

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

BTW, having low CPU/GPU usage isn't generally indicative of anything other than a powerful system that isn't being pushed by the tasks it's doing. That is OKAY 😀 Maybe you're thinking there's some bottleneck going on? If so, don't. There is none. Your just not pushing your system. When you crank it all up, your CPU/GPU will most likely hit high usage, and that's okay too.

A bottleneck is when the one or other piece of hardware hold back each other from potentially more performance. Example: A weak CPU with a powerful GPU. Or vice versa. You have a very balanced system.

 

[Rahraken]

I am using Streamlabs obs, but even still, I'm dropping about 20 fps in game as soon as I hit start streaming, and my gpu usage immediately drops, but when I'm not streaming gpu is maxed out like it should be

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

hmm, OBS is normally pretty easy to configure and with good results. Specially for a capable system.

So, in that case, start by making sure your GPU drivers are up to date, along with system drivers. Make sure GPU driver is a clean install, you can do this form the install/setup (select custom install, and tick the box for clean install), or use DDU to take off old drivers, and do the fresh install then. Also, don't bother with Geforce Experience and/or use it to configure games. It has a way of a butchering FPS in game, never mind streaming issues.

It's prob worth doing for the sake of doing a bios update. Make sure system is as good as it can be, rule out those potential software issues, and then work from there.

Try run an instance of HWMon, let your system idle, and post a screenshot of the hardware on the fly. We can look at CPU/GPU/Ram voltages, usage, max/min values etc and see if there maybe a hardware issue at play.
Run a game too, and alt tab out of the game (with HWMon running in back round) and post another screenshot with your system at load. ie gaming and streaming.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Oh, yeah, you will lose FPS in game when streaming. Typically it can be up to 30% of FPS. So if you are gaming alone at 100 FPS, while streaming you may only be getting close to 60-70fps. This is normal and to be expected. For the most part it's about finding a balance with less in game FPS (and high settings) versus stream output. Of course, no-one wants to watch a stream that looks bad, but you want to play the game at a reasonable level too. Balance is key.

 

[Rahraken]

https://imgur.com/a/q5Sti3B

View: https://imgur.com/a/q5Sti3B
GPU while streaming

https://imgur.com/a/Syda2jn

View: https://imgur.com/a/Syda2jn
CPU while streaming

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Everything looks pretty sweet there to me! All temps, voltages and usage is where i'd expect them to be.

Do you have MSI afterburner? If not, download it and run it. Set up the OSD to display CPU usage-temps/GPU usage-temps/System ram Usage/Frame time variance. Then go play a game and stream and just take a print screen while you're playing and post it.