GPU Underclocking itself only when playing this game ( Temps are fine )

[GuilderCraft]

My setup:
i5-6400
8GB DDR3L @1600MHz
GT 1030 MSI Aero ITX OC Edition
GeForce Driver vserion 411.70

My GT 1030 has a factory boost clock of 1,518 MHz and a core clock of 1,265, but when actually playing any game except this one the core runs at 1,748MHz and the temps usually hovers at 50*C. While I for the most part do not overclock, mainly because with most games I don't have to, I do know my card can overclock to a stable 2GHz with a +250 core overclock via MSI Afterburner, and that only brings the temps up to 52-53*C.

As I get about 35fps ( 720p with everything set to low ) out of combat and 30 fps in intensive combat I thought I could overclock just a bit to keep me in the mid-thirties even in combat to avoid the ocasional time slow/stutter that happens when this game drops below 30fps.
So I open the game on my main monitor and open MSI Afterburner on my secondary monitor only to discover that even though the core temp is at 37*C, my core clock is running at 1,100MHz-ish with the ocasional jump to the 1,300MHz-ish area. I mean seriously, it wasn't running hot, wasn't hitting 60fps, or doing anything else that should cause the GPU to underclock itself. Overlocking would not change the clock at all either. If my GPU would actually run at its' normal 1,748MHz Gameclock I'd probably be getting 40fps.

I tried looking around, but couldn't really see anything on this problem and I figured since it is only this game I am having issues with, I'd ask here before posting on something like Tomshardware. So, anyone else having this problem and/or know how to fix it?

[Aemony]

Nvidia's GPUs dynamically change their clock frequency based on the current workload when configured for the "Optimal power" power management mode in Nvidia Control Panel -> Manage 3D Settings.

The most obvious reason is simply that you're CPU bottlenecked, and the CPU can't prepare frames quick enough for the GPU anyway, or that the compute GPU workload of the game bottlenecks your GPU, so the rest of the GPU doesn't need to run faster anyway since it wouldn't have a difference on the frame rate.

You can, of course, force maximum performance by changing the power management mode in Nvidia Control Panel, and that should cause the GPU to run at the highest possible frequencies even when outside of a game. Whether you'll actually see a difference or not is up in the air though.

Also, the lack of compute cores on that GT 1030 is probably the bottleneck. It have 1/5 of what the minimum required GPU (GTX 770) have, which is bound to have an impact.

[GuilderCraft]

Aemony, I have two things to thank you for.
1. For not basically posting "Ewww GT 1030" which is about 80% of what most posts that mention them say.
2. Changing the Power Management Mode to "Prefer maximum performance" made a massive improvement. At 720p low preset 60 fps out of combat and 45-55 in combat, and at the high preset 35 out of combat and 30 in combat. At 1600x900 low preset ( my secondary monitor's native resolution ) I was getting 45fps out of combat and 40fps in combat. Considering the game looks significantly better at 900p I'll be playing at 900p from now on, even if the fps is a bit worse.

I heard the game had optimization issues, I wonder if one of them is messing up nVidia's dynamic clock settings. I even tried the game at 1080p after the fix and it was getting the same, if not a bit better, performence as I was originally getting at 720p. Either that or the game scales well with core clock speeds, as the Pascal GT 1030 clocks in at almost 70% faster then the Maxwell 770.