Low GPU Usage in certain Areas, 40-60% GPU Usage.

[Twistedツ]

Hey guys, I have an RTX 4090 Ryzen 9 7900x and 32 GB of RAM and some areas I have low gpu usage and in some areas I have 85-99% GPU Usage I need help on how to fix the low gpu usage in certain Areas.

[LEON HEEEEEELP!@!!!111]

Turn off HDR.

I had 60 - 80% usage and without HDR get 97-100% constantly

[ChiefMendez]

What's your resolution

[sonic16]

You're not telling us anything useful. Low GPU usage means nothing. What framerate you're getting and in which areas, vsync on/off ? Probably CPU bottleneck.

[Krypto]

All you need to worry about is if you're getting a solid consistent framerate. If so, then stop focusing on usage numbers and enjoy the game.

[GreatSleepWalker]

Are they running with RT like you are and do you notice the drops? I know on 4K my Rx 7900xtx oc and 5900x wasn't 100% utilized in some areas, but I don't think I would noticed if I didn't have the metrics up.

[fa]

im having low gpu usage and cpu usage too, raytracing on, 3080ti, ryzen 7 5700x, 32 gb ram, and ssd, this shouldnt be happening but it is, kind of reminds me of ground zeroes

[Tomatoshadow]

Why do you care about GPU load %. Low usage isn't bad, just means you're CPU bound, your GPU is way too powerful lol. Just increase your graphics settings?

[Tomatoshadow]

Originally posted by Slayzzツ:

My graphics are maxed dude and I'm not cpu bound I literally have a good cpu for the RTX 4090 and I care about gpu load because I'm getting 90% in most areas and when it's at 40% my FPS tanks so that's why I care.

That would have been helpful to know! Your GPU % load dropping isn't why your FPS is tanking.

So essentially, it's always a balance between CPU and GPU load. You are correct in assuming that 100% GPU load is a good thing, but not for the reason you might think.

Your GPU will run at 100% as long as the CPU isn't holding it back. If it dips below 100%, that means your CPU isn't able to keep up with all the frames your GPU is trying to render.

It doesn't mean your CPU is bad

You have really high-end hardware, that's not an issue. But it would be impossible for the two of them to be perfectly balanced and games aren't perfectly optimised either.

If for instance your CPU allows your GPU to reach 120 FPS throughout the game but one area is particularly demanding on the CPU (more draw calls than usual for instance), your CPU might only be able to send the info to your GPU fast enough for it to produce 90 FPS. In that case, your GPU Load will dip because it is now CPU-Bound instead of GPU-Bound. In other words, your GPU can't work at 100% because something is holding it back and it's very rarely anything other than the CPU.

Again, doesn't mean your CPU is bad. It means you've kinda reached the limit of how fast things can go. There's a diminishing return, you'd need a very, very powerful CPU to push it further (and it doesn't exist yet). And honestly, I'm not at all surprised that a 4090 would outperform pretty much any CPU that exists lol, that card is an absolute beast.

Also wanted to clarify something regarding FPS. It's a bit hard to wrap your head around so let me know if it's not too clear:

When you say your FPS "tanks" I'm assuming you're running at a pretty high FPS and it dips "significantly". Thing is, you can't do that because that metric is not linear. FPS is the number of frames that were rendered in a second. A second is 1000 ms no matter what. The closer you get to 0, the more FPS you have.

So at 60 FPS you're at 16.67 ms per frames. at 120 you're at half of that. So when for instance you "drop 30 FPS" it means absolutely nothing. Going from 60 to 30 FPS is an increase of 16 ms per frames. But going from 240 to 210 is going from 4.2 ms per frames to 4.8 ms per frames. The higher your FPS, the more it will fluctuate but that doesn't mean it's any "less stable".

Anyway, my advice for you:

Stop looking at hardware usage. Stop looking at FPS. You have some of the best hardware that exists and there's basically nothing you can do to improve your performance in any significant way.

[Tomatoshadow]

Cheers!