GPU using 92% while playing this game?

[Zed]

I just bought a new PC with an RTX 2070 Super graphics card and i7-10700k CPU, 32GB of Ram. Everything is brand new with a fresh install of WIndows 10.

I have tested the following games on Ultra with this new setup with no issues:
Star Wars Squardrons
Red Dead Redemption 2
Kingdom Come: Deliverance
PUBG

For whatever reason, 7 Days To Die pushes 92 to 100% GPU, with almost all the virtual RAM (7gb out of 8) being used and my GPU temp at 85%. I have tried using various graphics settings. Here's the thing that's baffling me. If I run default lowest settings, it runs the same level of GPU if I run Ultra. It seems to make absolutely no difference. It's like the game defaults to use this level of GPU.

Does anyone know why this is happening? I'm not using any mods. None of the other games I have tested are having this issue. It's just 7 Days To Die.

[SylenThunder]

GPU is designed to run 99-100% when there isn't a bottleneck or other limitation involved. It's good to utilize most of RAM and VRAM as well. Desirable even.

Not a single one of those games you're comparing is a 3D Voxel game.

If your GPU temps are that high, you have a cooling issue.

[Zed]

Originally posted by SylenThunder:

If your GPU temps are that high, you have a cooling issue.

I do not' have a cooling issue on any other game. I literally just jacked my settings on Red Dead Redemption 2 to Ultra and had zero issues. Is it possible something is going on with Alpha 19 that's causing this spike?

I'm going to download an older Alpha version and see if I have the same problems. I never had this issue playing 7 Days To Die before and I've been around since Alpha 9. I haven't played the game in quite some time though. Just coming back to it after about a year or so.

[Zed]

I'm testing Alpha 18.4 now. I'm only running 56 degrees temperature and only 2.6gb of dedicated memory of my graphics card. This looks considerably more normal.

There is a clear spike with Alpha 19. It's not minor.

[Zed]

I'm also testing Reign of Kings right now, another voxel based game.

I'm at 1.5gb of dedicated memory and 74% temperature. GPU floats around 80%, which is manageable.

[SiEgE]

Originally posted by SylenThunder:

GPU is designed to run 99-100% when there isn't a bottleneck or other limitation involved. It's good to utilize most of RAM and VRAM as well. Desirable even.

Not a single one of those games you're comparing is a 3D Voxel game.

If your GPU temps are that high, you have a cooling issue.

Using any hardware at 100% of its capabilites will wear it off faster. That is the main issue with why you better not buy videocards that were used for mining. Any game allows videocards to take some rest from time to time, except 7DTD. And there is no excuse for it to behave like that, especially when you're looking at the sky, or into the ground.. unless 7DTD uses videocard to calculate block stability.

When you make your first app that is waiting for your input, you'll probably make it consume 100% single core of CPU. Leaving it like that is a bad programmer's sign.

Originally posted by Donnie:

I just bought a new PC with an RTX 2070 Super graphics card and i7-10700k CPU, 32GB of Ram. Everything is brand new with a fresh install of WIndows 10.

I have tested the following games on Ultra with this new setup with no issues:
Star Wars Squardrons
Red Dead Redemption 2
Kingdom Come: Deliverance
PUBG

For whatever reason, 7 Days To Die pushes 92 to 100% GPU, with almost all the virtual RAM (7gb out of 8) being used and my GPU temp at 85%. I have tried using various graphics settings. Here's the thing that's baffling me. If I run default lowest settings, it runs the same level of GPU if I run Ultra. It seems to make absolutely no difference. It's like the game defaults to use this level of GPU.

Does anyone know why this is happening? I'm not using any mods. None of the other games I have tested are having this issue. It's just 7 Days To Die.

1) Disable vsync.
2) Enable fps limiter in your driver.

7DTD's ultras are not really optimized, so you should stick with Medium settings, and then raise other features one by one.

[Zed]

Originally posted by SiEgE:

1) Disable vsync.
2) Enable fps limiter in your driver.

7DTD's ultras are not really optimized, so you should stick with Medium settings, and then raise other features one by one.

I already said in my original post, that settings have no effect on this. I ran everything on lowest settings and it stayed at 92% GPU use with high temps and virtual RAM for the graphics card. I never use V-Sync. Ever.

The numbers stay basically exactly the same when I jack the settings to Ultra. That's why I think something is wrong with the game's compatibility with my new graphics card. Also... I tested Alpha 18 a little while ago and had much more reasonable numbers. Something has to be going on with Alpha 19 for this to happen.

[SiEgE]

Originally posted by Donnie:

Originally posted by SiEgE:

1) Disable vsync.
2) Enable fps limiter in your driver.

7DTD's ultras are not really optimized, so you should stick with Medium settings, and then raise other features one by one.

I already said in my original post, that settings have no effect on this. I ran everything on lowest settings and it stayed at 92% GPU use with high temps and virtual RAM for the graphics card. I never use V-Sync. Ever.

The numbers stay basically exactly the same when I jack the settings to Ultra. That's why I think something is wrong with the game's compatibility with my new graphics card. Also... I tested Alpha 18 a little while ago and had much more reasonable numbers. Something has to be going on with Alpha 19 for this to happen.

Forgot to mention: I didn't mean it would fix the GPU load issue. It MIGHT relieve some extra load, and add for the game's smoothness, but the load will stay the same no matter what you'll try to do.
Vsync is extra glitchy in this game. And that is why I advice you to kill it right away.

[SkepticJoker]

There will always be a bottleneck in the relationship between software and hardware. If your system and 7 Days To Die didn't have any bottlenecks then your performance would be unlimited. The ideal bottle neck in a game should be your GPU. This means you should see your GPU at 97% to 100% usage. It's still a bottleneck, but it's the most ideal bottleneck. In simple terms, either the CPU has to wait for the GPU to finish a task or vise-versa. Having the CPU wait for the GPU to finish is our ideal bottleneck. For example: CPU 25%, and GPU 99%.

Every game requires different things out of a system. I don't think any of us have a deep enough understanding of 7 Days To Die's inner workings to tell if there is an actual problem. Alpha 19's high video memory usage is an indicator of a lot of, HD textures and high resolution shadows. The developers mentioned something about new PBR textures, sounds like something that would eat up video memory. Now, just because a game is using a lot of video memory doesn't mean we should necessarily see very high GPU usage. The fact that alpha 19 is utilizing your GPU more then in previous alphas is nothing to be worried about.

Originally posted by Donnie:

For whatever reason, 7 Days To Die pushes 92 to 100% GPU, with almost all the virtual RAM (7gb out of 8) being used and my GPU temp at 85%. I have tried using various graphics settings. Here's the thing that's baffling me. If I run default lowest settings, it runs the same level of GPU if I run Ultra. It seems to make absolutely no difference. It's like the game defaults to use this level of GPU.

92% GPU usage is an indicator of a CPU related bottleneck somewhere in the hardware and/or software, but 100% GPU usage is an indicator of the ideal GPU bottleneck.

The GPU usage problem:
It sounds like a problem with the game not being able to fully utilize your GPU at all times because of what is likely a CPU related bottleneck. It's likely that the game is so CPU bottlenecked that changing video settings won't effect GPU usage at all. These are the kinds of situations that aren't worth fixing until the game is mostly done being developed, even then sometimes situations like these never get fully resolved in the end.

The GPU heat problem:
In any case, what we can tell from 7 Days To Die's hardware usage is, that it requires a strong CPU. You mentioned something about not having GPU heat issues in other games. This could be because other games don't utilize your CPU as much as 7 Days To Die does. Unless your CPU is water cooled with the radiator fan blowing the hot air out of your case, it's probable that your CPU is pumping out a tun of heat into your computer case and causing you GPU to heat up more then it normally would.

[Zed]

Originally posted by jeromeN7:

There will always be a bottleneck in the relationship between software and hardware. If your system and 7 Days To Die didn't have any bottlenecks then your performance would be unlimited. The ideal bottle neck in a game should be your GPU. This means you should see your GPU at 97% to 100% usage. It's still a bottleneck, but it's the most ideal bottleneck. In simple terms, either the CPU has to wait for the GPU to finish a task or vise-versa. Having the CPU wait for the GPU to finish is our ideal bottleneck. For example: CPU 25%, and GPU 99%.

Every game requires different things out of a system. I don't think any of us have a deep enough understanding of 7 Days To Die's inner workings to tell if there is an actual problem. Alpha 19's high video memory usage is an indicator of a lot of, HD textures and high resolution shadows. The developers mentioned something about new PBR textures, sounds like something that would eat up video memory. Now, just because a game is using a lot of video memory doesn't mean we should necessarily see very high GPU usage. The fact that alpha 19 is utilizing your GPU more then in previous alphas is nothing to be worried about.

Originally posted by Donnie:

For whatever reason, 7 Days To Die pushes 92 to 100% GPU, with almost all the virtual RAM (7gb out of 8) being used and my GPU temp at 85%. I have tried using various graphics settings. Here's the thing that's baffling me. If I run default lowest settings, it runs the same level of GPU if I run Ultra. It seems to make absolutely no difference. It's like the game defaults to use this level of GPU.

92% GPU usage is an indicator of a CPU related bottleneck somewhere in the hardware and/or software, but 100% GPU usage is an indicator of the ideal GPU bottleneck.

The GPU usage problem:
It sounds like a problem with the game not being able to fully utilize your GPU at all times because of what is likely a CPU related bottleneck. It's likely that the game is so CPU bottlenecked that changing video settings won't effect GPU usage at all. These are the kinds of situations that aren't worth fixing until the game is mostly done being developed, even then sometimes situations like these never get fully resolved in the end.

The GPU heat problem:
In any case, what we can tell from 7 Days To Die's hardware usage is, that it requires a strong CPU. You mentioned something about not having GPU heat issues in other games. This could be because other games don't utilize your CPU as much as 7 Days To Die does. Unless your CPU is water cooled with the radiator fan blowing the hot air out of your case, it's probable that your CPU is pumping out a tun of heat into your computer case and causing you GPU to heat up more then it normally would.

My CPU is water cooled.

[hawley.kevin]

sylen ran away xD

[SylenThunder]

Originally posted by hawley.kevin:

sylen ran away xD

No, I'm just opting to stay out of it. So much of this uneducated nonsense is nauseating. It's like they're just pulling stuff off the top of their head without having any actual industry experience.

Statements like this...

Originally posted by jeromeN7:

...
92% GPU usage is an indicator of a CPU related bottleneck somewhere in the hardware and/or software,...

A CPU bottleneck would lock the GPU at a lower rate. It wouldn't be able to achieve a decent performance level because the CPU is preventing it from getting there. The CPU is the floodgate holding the water back. The GPU can't work with data from thin air. Yall are putting the water on the wrong side of the dam. Especially considering this is a Voxel game that's CPU-intensive. Even then, a 10700k is not going to bottleneck a 2070. That's just silly. You would have to have some extremely ♥♥♥♥♥♥ hardware configuration for that to happen.


If your GPU is running high, that's a good thing because it means your GPU is being fully utilized. If it's that high when you're idle, you have an issue. While gaming is perfectly normal though.

And the reason you avoid bitcoin cards, is because they're run artifically at max for extreme periods of time. It's not like normal gaming where you're only hitting that a few hours a day. They're running them 24/7 until they burn out.

And lastly, overheating with water cooling?!?!?!? You have some serious issues there. Your system is either set up incorrectly, or you're low on liquid. Air cooled I OC my 1060 to 1070 speeds and never get above 65C. Now if I don't have proper airflow in the case, it'll hit 85C easy. Correct airflow and pressure, and it's never an issue.
Aside from water cooling being proven inferior to quality air cooling, you still should never normally see that kind of an extreme. That's just insane, and a clear indication you've got some ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up hardware.

[Zed]

Originally posted by SylenThunder:

overheating with water cooling?!?!?!? You have some serious issues there. Your system is either set up incorrectly, or you're low on liquid. Air cooled I OC my 1060 to 1070 speeds and never get above 65C. Now if I don't have proper airflow in the case, it'll hit 85C easy. Correct airflow and pressure, and it's never an issue.
Aside from water cooling being proven inferior to quality air cooling, you still should never normally see that kind of an extreme. That's just insane, and a clear indication you've got some ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up hardware.

Why doesn't it happen in Alpha 18.4 then? I think this is an Alpha 19 issue. Also... I did some troubleshooting and turned on V-SYNC, and it dropped my GPU use to 77% with temps bouncing around 80%.

I just played Star Wars Squadrons on ultra. Never went above 60 degrees and my GPU bounces between 60 and 80% use.

[CoinSpin]

Keep in mind that you are comparing how your rig runs on finished AAA game titles with behaviors running the latest alpha iteration of a game still in development. It's not just apples and oranges comparisons between voxel and non-voxel games, that fact is still super important to consider when it comes to analyzing performance and such.

A19 brought a big revamp of textures and other graphical tweaks, so it's not surprising that comparing GPU workloads between A18 and A19 shows some differences. If you really wanted to compare a little more accurately, you'd want to test on early A18 versions compared to current A19. There's still a lot of optimization in the game engine's current build that hasn't been done, so systems often just slog through running the game by brute force right now. That optimization should come as it gets closer to the finish line and official game release.

[Zed]

Originally posted by CoinSpin:

Keep in mind that you are comparing how your rig runs on finished AAA game titles with behaviors running the latest alpha iteration of a game still in development. It's not just apples and oranges comparisons between voxel and non-voxel games, that fact is still super important to consider when it comes to analyzing performance and such.

I did a test earlier with Reign of Kings, another voxel game that's jacked on video settings and had absolutely no issues.

Originally posted by CoinSpin:

A19 brought a big revamp of textures and other graphical tweaks, so it's not surprising that comparing GPU workloads between A18 and A19 shows some differences. If you really wanted to compare a little more accurately, you'd want to test on early A18 versions compared to current A19. There's still a lot of optimization in the game engine's current build that hasn't been done, so systems often just slog through running the game by brute force right now. That optimization should come as it gets closer to the finish line and official game release.

The most baffling thing for me, is video settings (outside of enabling VSYNC) seem to have very little effect. I can run this game on Ultra and Lowest settings and get the same response with temps and GPU maxing between 92% and 100%.

[CoinSpin]

Originally posted by Donnie:

I did a test earlier with Reign of Kings, another voxel game that's jacked on video settings and had absolutely no issues.

Ok, so now you are comparing apples and pears. Reign of Kings is a 5 year old and completely finished title. It does have a voxel engine system, but it is highly simplified compared to games like 7 Days to Die - texture complexity alone is quite a bit lower in Reign, which means a far lower impact on GPU.

The most baffling thing for me, is video settings (outside of enabling VSYNC) seem to have very little effect. I can run this game on Ultra and Lowest settings and get the same response with temps and GPU maxing between 92% and 100%.

It's possible that some (or many) of those graphics options are only partially effective or functional right now. Again, you are playing a work in progress, not everything internally is even close to completed and/or optimized.