How to dial down the CPU usage of the game?

[shaosc3]

First, I'm become a huge fan of the game. Finally something different from Civ and I think it's heading toward the right direction. I'd rather have a deep game with tedious micromanagement than a streamlined shallow game, because the prior is fixable but not the latter. This game rocks especially with playing with the Anno soundtrack.

Now onto the main topic....

My problem is that this game often puts my CPU to roughly 95 degrees C (GPU stays around 65 degrees). I'm playing on a gaming laptop with Nvidia 4080, and it can run Cyberpunk with full path tracing max resolution, with CPU only around 80 degrees C.

However, after playing the game last night, my laptop's microphone stopped functioning and I couldn't detect it under "Devices" anymore. The overheating probably burned it out. That's alright, this game is worth it, even at its current state.

Is there anyway to lower CPU usage of my game?? I tried to lower FPS, but it doesn't do much. I suspect it may have to do with the simulation of all the little people walking around.

[Tandis]

If you're already undervolting you must be pretty technical so let me share something I've done on my laptops over the years to help me with games that might help here:

With the game running, go to task manager (ctrl-shift-esc). Go to details and find the Ara process. Set the priority to Below Normal. That might give you a couple more degrees of cooling.

[shaosc3]

Tandis の投稿を引用：

If you're already undervolting you must be pretty technical so let me share something I've done on my laptops over the years to help me with games that might help here:

With the game running, go to task manager (ctrl-shift-esc). Go to details and find the Ara process. Set the priority to Below Normal. That might give you a couple more degrees of cooling.

Thank you Tandis, I haven't tried this method before and will try when I play this weekend.

By the way, my processor spec is 13th Gen Intel Core i9-13980HX (32 CPU) 2.2 Ghz

[mr_root]

shaosc3 の投稿を引用：

Tandis の投稿を引用：

If you're already undervolting you must be pretty technical so let me share something I've done on my laptops over the years to help me with games that might help here:

With the game running, go to task manager (ctrl-shift-esc). Go to details and find the Ara process. Set the priority to Below Normal. That might give you a couple more degrees of cooling.

Thank you Tandis, I haven't tried this method before and will try when I play this weekend.

By the way, my processor spec is 13th Gen Intel Core i9-13980HX (32 CPU) 2.2 Ghz

Thats one of the hottest CPUs on the market. Intel spec is 100°C. I guess it is pretty normal, it is just one of few Games which actually can make use of many cores (which is great). Maybe there is an eco mode in bios like AMD CPus have, where you can set a maximum power target, which will set lower max frequencies. Intel is known for years to push that very high by default.

[mr_root]

shaosc3 の投稿を引用：

Tandis の投稿を引用：

If you're already undervolting you must be pretty technical so let me share something I've done on my laptops over the years to help me with games that might help here:

With the game running, go to task manager (ctrl-shift-esc). Go to details and find the Ara process. Set the priority to Below Normal. That might give you a couple more degrees of cooling.

Thank you Tandis, I haven't tried this method before and will try when I play this weekend.

By the way, my processor spec is 13th Gen Intel Core i9-13980HX (32 CPU) 2.2 Ghz

Found something regarding eco mode, have a look.

https://youtu.be/WjQRdwJd3F0?t=186

[shaosc3]

Hi guys, i want to report back that my CPU overheat problem had been solved.

I did try out the eco mode that you recommended. Although it lowered my temp to 65 degrees, it also caused significant slowdown of my game. While it's not really a feasible solution for me, it gave me confidence that I was heading toward the right direction.

So I did more research around lowering the temp of CPU. What eventually worked for me is:

1. I downloaded ThrottleStop.
2. I disabled the CPU voltage lock from my BIOS; when this step is skipped, many options in ThrottleStop will be disabled.
3. Go back to ThrottlelStop, open up "FIVR". Go to "Turbo Ratio Limit":
a. When I lower the turbo ratio of my core by 5, my CPU heat went from 95 to 83 degrees.
b. When I lower the turbo ratio of my cores by 10, my CPU heat went down to 70 degrees.

In both a and b, I didn't feel any slowdown in my game at all. In fact, I even turned my FPS back to 60 and 3D scaling back to 1.0.

In any case, my CPU overheat issue is solved, and that's due to all your help. Thank you again. Now I can play Ara all weekend without worrying about oveheating!