100% CPU usage issue

[Kanner]

Edit as I can't select my own reply as an answer: No direct fix as of right now but this seemingly varies between users as some have had what they mentioned in here work for them but no fix for me. What has helped drop some of the usage though is:

*The new 23.8.1 version for AMD helped
*Under the AMD software: Record & Stream> Settings> Record Desktop: Disabled, Instant replay: Disabled, Instant Gif: Disabled, in-game replay: Disabled

These fixes dropped my CPU usage from 95-100 to 85-90 not a big difference but enough to make me feel better. Also this isn't a pre-caching problem nor a hardware compatibility issue as no game should max my CPU with what I have and what this game demands for 10 minutes straight. If anything just an AMD software issue.

If this problem gets fixed I'll update this if I remember.

Edit 2: A day after posting this supposed fix in my original edit my cpu usage is normal now (20% at launch and lowers to 5% after loading). Idk if it was my fix or an update on OW's end but just want to note this.
--------------------------------------------------

At this point I swear this is unfixable as I have seen threads dating back years with none of them finding a fix, but I'll try anyways.

Overwatch 2 boots up and eats up 90% of my CPU while not using any GPU. This goes away after 5-10 minutes as it'll switch back to using my GPU but sometimes, I can't even launch the game due to the usage.

Specs: AMD RX 6700, AMD Ryzen 7 1800X (8 cores), 16GBs of ram

Notes:

• Borderless windowed and fullscreen make no difference
  
• I am using a PC not a laptop
  
• Changing any graphic settings doesn't help
  
• turning off vsync makes no difference
  
• changing power mode makes no difference
  
• disabling iGPU makes no difference
  
• Setting OW2 to High performance/power saving in graphic settings make no difference
  
• Setting custom frame rate makes no difference, both high and low
  
• Uninstalling and installing makes no difference
  
• This happens on both Blizzard and Steam version
  
• Overwatch lists my GPU under settings but still uses my CPU
  
• My monitor is plugged into my GPU
  
• Drivers for GPU up to date
  
• Power plan makes no difference both high performance and balanced
  
• This was not an issue on launch and only started happening around season 3

[BadMonkey]

Here is a suggestion. Stupid basics first, make sure every else is closed, including browsers. Disable Antivirus. Open Task Manager. Expand Overwatch Application. Right click on sub-menu Overwatch Application. Choose "Go to details". Right click on Overwatch.exe. Choose Set Priority. Change the value to "High".

Also, from Task Manager, you can choose the tab "Startup". From there you can "disable" quite a few things at startup that, odds are, you do not need.

Also, if you are OC'ing your CPU or video card you might try setting them back to default. Let me know. Good luck!

[DrkCntry]

It's generally pre-caching that causes issues like you describe. One of the many inconsistent software/hardware handshakes this game goes through.

[Kanner]

Originally posted by BadMonkey:

Here is a suggestion. Stupid basics first, make sure every else is closed, including browsers. Disable Antivirus. Open Task Manager. Expand Overwatch Application. Right click on sub-menu Overwatch Application. Choose "Go to details". Right click on Overwatch.exe. Choose Set Priority. Change the value to "High".

Also, from Task Manager, you can choose the tab "Startup". From there you can "disable" quite a few things at startup that, odds are, you do not need.

Also, if you are OC'ing your CPU or video card you might try setting them back to default. Let me know. Good luck!

Disabled and turned off everything while having the priority set to High but didn't make any difference in the CPU usage.

I already have turned off most of my startup applications.

Running out of box settings on all of my hardware.

[Silverlight]

Try it on Linux with proton GE and feralgamemode.

Use launch commands to boot it with AMD GPU specifically

The problem could be windows.

[BadMonkey]

Originally posted by Kanner:

Originally posted by BadMonkey:

Here is a suggestion. Stupid basics first, make sure every else is closed, including browsers. Disable Antivirus. Open Task Manager. Expand Overwatch Application. Right click on sub-menu Overwatch Application. Choose "Go to details". Right click on Overwatch.exe. Choose Set Priority. Change the value to "High".

Also, from Task Manager, you can choose the tab "Startup". From there you can "disable" quite a few things at startup that, odds are, you do not need.

Also, if you are OC'ing your CPU or video card you might try setting them back to default. Let me know. Good luck!

Disabled and turned off everything while having the priority set to High but didn't make any difference in the CPU usage.

I already have turned off most of my startup applications.

Running out of box settings on all of my hardware.

Sorry that didn't help. Have you seen this?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/z5e49r/benefits_of_steam_shader_precaching/

[Shakoris]

Please tell me you didn't do process elimination on the "things that made no difference" and switched them back because multiple things need to be changed it seems.

[55zanaris99]

shell out for a better CPU

[BadMonkey]

Originally posted by connoisseur of kill:

shell out for a better CPU

It isn't that bad of a CPU, I was running an I5 previously and still had solid 90+ fps on graphics running at 150%. I don't think it's that.

[Silverlight]

Originally posted by BadMonkey:

Originally posted by connoisseur of kill:

shell out for a better CPU

It isn't that bad of a CPU, I was running an I5 previously and still had solid 90+ fps on graphics running at 150%. I don't think it's that.

Both windows and the game overwatch constantly update, and the updates don't always consider every piece of hardware.

Linux usually gets better performance from AMD cpus than Windows and feralgamemode is a Linux tool that optimizes the hardware/software pipeline minimizing resources that background operations in the OS use.

Linux with feral game mode and a command to specifically render on the AMD GPU is the best way to squeeze every bit of potential from your PC.
And then you can also double check in the terminal that it's using the GPU to render the application

[lipglosssugar]

Originally posted by Kanner:

At this point I swear this is unfixable as I have seen threads dating back years with none of them finding a fix, but I'll try anyways.

Overwatch 2 boots up and eats up 90% of my CPU while not using any GPU. This goes away after 5-10 minutes as it'll switch back to using my GPU but sometimes, I can't even launch the game due to the usage.

Specs: AMD RX 6700, AMD Ryzen 7 1800X (8 cores), 16GBs of ram

Notes:

• Borderless windowed and fullscreen make no difference
  
• I am using a PC not a laptop
  
• Changing any graphic settings doesn't help
  
• turning off vsync makes no difference
  
• changing power mode makes no difference
  
• disabling iGPU makes no difference
  
• Setting OW2 to High performance/power saving in graphic settings make no difference
  
• Setting custom frame rate makes no difference, both high and low
  
• Uninstalling and installing makes no difference
  
• This happens on both Blizzard and Steam version
  
• Overwatch lists my GPU under settings but still uses my CPU
  
• My monitor is plugged into my GPU
  
• Drivers for GPU up to date
  
• Power plan makes no difference both high performance and balanced
  
• This was not an issue on launch and only started happening around season 3

Have the exact same issue just as a I a bought a new gpu and installed it. Did you by chance end up finding a fix?

[Kanner]

Originally posted by lipglosssugar:

Originally posted by Kanner:

At this point I swear this is unfixable as I have seen threads dating back years with none of them finding a fix, but I'll try anyways.

Overwatch 2 boots up and eats up 90% of my CPU while not using any GPU. This goes away after 5-10 minutes as it'll switch back to using my GPU but sometimes, I can't even launch the game due to the usage.

Specs: AMD RX 6700, AMD Ryzen 7 1800X (8 cores), 16GBs of ram

Notes:

• Borderless windowed and fullscreen make no difference
  
• I am using a PC not a laptop
  
• Changing any graphic settings doesn't help
  
• turning off vsync makes no difference
  
• changing power mode makes no difference
  
• disabling iGPU makes no difference
  
• Setting OW2 to High performance/power saving in graphic settings make no difference
  
• Setting custom frame rate makes no difference, both high and low
  
• Uninstalling and installing makes no difference
  
• This happens on both Blizzard and Steam version
  
• Overwatch lists my GPU under settings but still uses my CPU
  
• My monitor is plugged into my GPU
  
• Drivers for GPU up to date
  
• Power plan makes no difference both high performance and balanced
  
• This was not an issue on launch and only started happening around season 3

Have the exact same issue just as a I a bought a new gpu and installed it. Did you by chance end up finding a fix?

No fix far as I am aware of, just hoping that an eventual update is going to fix it as this wasn't an issue in prior seasons but I don't hold hope

[FizzyElf]

From what I remember watching old laptop review videos, overwatch always had strange CPU usage levels, hell my own copy of OW2 uses ~40% CPU BUT the entire game is running on my CPU, I have a Ryzen 7 5800 and will black screen if I try to force it to run with my CPU and graphics card. Now that said, this^ and the usage issue in general is a coin toss, it's not very consistent and in my case, I can ignore it because the game is, for some reason, software limited to 60 FPS (meaning on the lowest or highest settings, 60 is where you will cap out, usually issues like that happen in strategy games and the FPS keeps dropping till it's a slide show but here it's a stable frame rate lock) so it really wouldn't matter if I had the game running with the graphics card or not, at the end of the day the CPU is preforming just as well without it. In your case, considering I am hitting 40% without any obvious spikes over time, I would assume the game is simply slamming your CPU so hard that it can't keep it's head above water due to some random process the game is running now (after season 3) that your CPU is getting the stuffing kicked out of it trying to run where as mine is pressing through that issue no problem and simply banging it's head against the FPS cap.

Again, coin toss, it make's it hard to isolate and deal with the problem.

[BadMonkey]

If you are stuck at 60 fps it sounds like it is either mis-identifying your GPU or your monitor/resolution

[FizzyElf]

Originally posted by BadMonkey:

If you are stuck at 60 fps it sounds like it is either mis-identifying your GPU or your monitor/resolution

It found it during initial set up but because of the black screen which after a bit of testing ended up being the GPU I set the game to use intergrated graphics via the Nvidia control panel. The game didn't have any trouble with my resolution though and I don't have V-sync on or the frame rate limiters applied in the settings, though to be fair, running a 4k 50 inch monitor isn't the exact same thing as running a 4k 50 inch TV, that said though the difference isn't enough to cause something like this and I've never seen the issue in any other title outside of old strategy games where hardware wise you are doing fine but the software can't keep up with what is going on in the battle.

[BadMonkey]

Originally posted by FizzyElf:

Originally posted by BadMonkey:

If you are stuck at 60 fps it sounds like it is either mis-identifying your GPU or your monitor/resolution

It found it during initial set up but because of the black screen which after a bit of testing ended up being the GPU I set the game to use intergrated graphics via the Nvidia control panel. The game didn't have any trouble with my resolution though and I don't have V-sync on or the frame rate limiters applied in the settings, though to be fair, running a 4k 50 inch monitor isn't the exact same thing as running a 4k 50 inch TV, that said though the difference isn't enough to cause something like this and I've never seen the issue in any other title outside of old strategy games where hardware wise you are doing fine but the software can't keep up with what is going on in the battle.

Just me, but I doubt your integrated graphics is better than the GPU you are using. Guessing the monitor is 60hz. Perhaps set it to your GPU then set monitor at 60. That might clear up the black screen. If the GPU is trying to force the tv past what it can display that more than likely would cause problems