Game using too much CPU/not enough GPU

[NinjaBat]

Just got this and Miles Morales during the sale but I've encountered an interesting issue that I can't figure out for the life of me. When on the main menu everything's fine and seems normal but once in-game everything gets weird. My CPU is running at around 95% and my GPU is barely cracking 40% in 1080p on the Very High preset with raytracing off and crowd/traffic density on very low. This is after turning off SMT in my BIOs, which improved my performance a ton. I get around 57 FPS which is nice but there's a lot of random stuttering that makes it difficult to play properly (all I've managed to do is swing around in a small area before you start the initial combat tutorial). I have a friend with an almost identical setup and his GPU is almost at full use with his CPU being around the 40%-50% range. He also gets about 120 frames on the same settings as me as well as when his graphics are cranked to the max (no raytracing). I initially thought that running the game on lower settings would help but lowering graphics actually makes it run *worse* so I'm very confused.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT 12GB VRAM
RAM: 8GB 3k MHz DDR4

If any other specs are needed let me know.

[Stormspark]

You're running into the CPU limit, that CPU is just not good enough for the settings you are running. This game is EXTREMELY CPU intensive. You would get massive gains by going to a Ryzen 5000 or 7000 series, or an Intel 12 or 13 series.

[NinjaBat]

Originally posted by Stormspark:

You're running into the CPU limit, that CPU is just not good enough for the settings you are running. This game is EXTREMELY CPU intensive. You would get massive gains by going to a Ryzen 5000 or 7000 series, or an Intel 12 or 13 series.

I thought this initially but the friend I mentioned has the same exact CPU as me, an older GPU, and 16GB memory which would seem to indicate that the memory is the issue *however* I also tried running Miles Morales earlier and it runs near flawlessly on the same settings I'm using in the Remaster as well as actually running flawlessly on High preset or below (in contrast to the Remaster running worse the lower my graphics settings are). Also my GPU is actually at 75%-80% in Miles. The current theory is that for whatever reason the Remaster is just unable to use more of my GPU but we can't figure out why.

[El Magias]

I just had the same issue . low gpu usage with no reason since yesterday was working fine

[Vedren]

Are you set to "exclusive full screen"? If it just says fullscreen it's windowed fullscreen and some gpu's wont apply all their power to a windowed application.

[NinjaBat]

Originally posted by Vedren:

Are you set to "exclusive full screen"? If it just says fullscreen it's windowed fullscreen and some gpu's wont apply all their power to a windowed application.

I tried it in Fullscreen, Exclusive Fullscreen, and Windowed. Out of the 3 Exclusive Fullscreen actually ran the worst. Both Windowed and Fullscreen have an equally annoying amount of stutter that'll definitely cause problems in later sections and Exclusive Fullscreen has that same stutter but it happens more often which gets the game like 2 steps away from becoming a PowerPoint presentation.

It's a real headscratcher. If it's my CPU why can my buddy with the same exact one as me run it fine? If it's a lack of RAM why can I run Miles Morales near perfectly with the same settings? Why is my GPU and CPU usage the exact opposite of seemingly everyone else?

It's just so odd.

[FaZe_IdIoTツ゚]

Then put it on low ..... not much of a dif still look good

[NinjaBat]

Originally posted by FaZe_IdIoTツ゚:

Then put it on low ..... not much of a dif still look good

As I touched on in the main post I tried it on *every* preset as well as trying to customize it to see if a specific setting was the issue and the lower my graphics settings were the worse it ran.

[CJM]

High CPU could also be an indicator of primary storage drive performance.

What are the specs of your hard drive? SSD? M.2 NVMe?

[NinjaBat]

Originally posted by CJM:

High CPU could also be an indicator of primary storage drive performance.

What are the specs of your hard drive? SSD? M.2 NVMe?

Had to dig a bit but apparently the drive I have it on is a SATA HDD with 7200 RPM. Friend classified it as "old school" so now I'm thinking it could be the issue.

[CJM]

Originally posted by NinjaBat:

Had to dig a bit but apparently the drive I have it on is a SATA HDD with 7200 RPM. Friend classified it as "old school" so now I'm thinking it could be the issue.

Yeah, you may as well be playing from a floppy disk these days. Mechanical read and write on spinning discs is guaranteed to cause stuttering and high CPU, even when spinning at 7200 rotations per minute. A SATA Solid State Drive (SSD) should make the game playable, but a fast M.2 NVMe solid state drive (NVMe) seems to be needed.

[NinjaBat]

Originally posted by CJM:

Originally posted by NinjaBat:

Had to dig a bit but apparently the drive I have it on is a SATA HDD with 7200 RPM. Friend classified it as "old school" so now I'm thinking it could be the issue.

Yeah, you may as well be playing from a floppy disk these days. Mechanical read and write on spinning discs is guaranteed to cause stuttering and high CPU, even when spinning at 7200 rotations per minute. A SATA Solid State Drive (SSD) should make the game playable, but a fast M.2 NVMe solid state drive (NVMe) seems to be needed.

Odd that Miles Morales doesn't seem to have this issue. I do have a SATA SSD as well but it's full of all my small downloads as well as a few *big* games that have notoriously long load times; Elder Scrolls online for example. Guess I'll clear some room and give that a shot then, thanks.

[El Magias]

i just found a solution to the low gpu performance. I had to turn off the freesync function from the monitor itself. dont know why but it fixes the problem.

[NinjaBat]

Originally posted by El Magias:

i just found a solution to the low gpu performance. I had to turn off the freesync function from the monitor itself. dont know why but it fixes the problem.

Good to know but my current monitor isn't compatible with Freesync. I'll make sure to remember that for the future though if I encounter similar issues on one that is.

[NinjaBat]

Well putting it on the SSD did lower the CPU usage but since my GPU usage was already low it just made the game run even worse. I guess I'll just go down the line upgrading my stuff bit by bit (starting with RAM because $) and seeing what, if anything, fixes the issue or if it's just a case of some optimization thing being used in Miles Morales that hasn't been put in the remaster yet. Thanks for the assistance everyone.

[CJM]

Is it running on an integrated GPU/APU? Instead of your Dedicated Graphics Card?

I would expect Spiderman: Remastered to be enough to trigger a switch from integrated to dedicated, but a system with a 7200 RPM drive may require manual configuration.

Also, on the scaling section of the display options, there is a targeted frame rate, adjusting it may help smooth the graphics. Not entirely sure of its overall impact. Seems to throttle "cutscenes"...