Game does not fully utilize GPU

[Teffers]

Genuine Question

I've been playing FF14 for a long time using the non-Steam version, and I've noticed something that’s been bugging me. When I'm in the main menu, up to the point where I choose which character to log in with, the game uses 99% of my GPU. That seems normal since I don’t have an FPS cap set. However, once I’m in the game world with almost max settings, GPU usage drops to 35-48%, with FPS ranging between 60-100. It seems like the game could use the remaining GPU resources to achieve a higher framerate. This issue is even more noticeable during Alliance raids, where the framerate takes a significant hit.

I’ve tried various troubleshooting steps including reinstalling drivers, checking power settings and clock speeds, setting optimised settings in the NVIDIA control panel, enabling and setting MSI to high, tweaking the game profile in NVIDIA Inspector, and even testing a fresh Windows install. None of these actions have improved GPU usage.

What am I missing, or is this a common issue where the game doesn’t fully utilize higher-end GPUs?

System Specs:
game location on SSD
Ryzen 9 5900X 12c 24t
32GB 3600MHz (2x16GB)
RTX 3080 MASTER Rev.3
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/gigabyte-aorus-rtx-3080-master-rev-3-0.b9149

[Lixire]

The game is very heavily dependent on single threaded performance.
I do see my 3080 at 100% usage all the time at 3440x1440 but I'm on 7800X3D+64GB DDR5 6000@CL30 so the CPU has much higher single core performance to work with due to increased clock speeds + newer architecture and more cache

Since you are running on Windows 11, Make sure that Core Isolation is turned off within the Windows Security settings as it tanks memory performance and the same security setting doesn't provide any value to the average user (only if you are in the enterprise it does matter)
Also if you did reset or update your BIOS at some point make sure that XMP/DOCP is enabled so your memory would actually run at 3600 instead of 2133

[Alternity]

Game is very CPU dependant.

[NuhUh]

Like most (if not all) MMOs, FFXIV is very CPU dependent. A strong single thread CPU will give you better performance over a lower end CPU. It's not to say your GPU doesn't matter because FFXIV particles are VERY GPU dependent. If you've ever joined a 24-man raid with the Player Skills Particles set to FULL, your GPU is handling all rainbow-colored diarrhea effects that's spammed all over bosses/mobs in raids.

But overall, most of the games rendering occurs on the CPU.

[Teffers]

I had totally forgotten about Core Isolation. I turned it off and got a small improvement. As for the BIOS and XMP/DOCP settings, everything is up to date. Only beta firmware is available, and I'm not messing with that.

Overall, it comes down to CPU dependency, which is annoying. It would be nice if they added support for multi threading—maybe in 20 years, haha.
It sucks that the benchmark does not mirror the game, as it had crazy high rates.