High CPU Usage in Helldivers 2 — 100% CPU In-Game, 85% on Ship

[MEOWgician]

System Specs:

CPU: Ryzen 5 5600 (OC to 4650 MHz)
GPU: RX 7900 XT (1440p)
RAM: 32 GB (3600 MHz)
Monitor: 2K (1440p)
Issue:
While playing Helldivers 2, my CPU usage hits 100%. I occasionally experience FPS drops, and the CPU temperature gets quite high. Meanwhile, the GPU isn't fully utilized.

What I've Tried:

Updated GPU and chipset drivers.
Checked background processes (OBS, Discord, browsers) — minimal impact.
Lowered graphics settings, including draw distance and physics — no noticeable improvement.
Question:
Is this a known optimization issue or something specific to my system? Has anyone else experienced this, and are there any solutions?

Thanks in advance!

[ZiggyDeath]

Originally posted by MEOWgician:

While playing Helldivers 2, my CPU usage hits 100%. I occasionally experience FPS drops, and the CPU temperature gets quite high. Meanwhile, the GPU isn't fully utilized.

Practically the definition of being CPU bound.

You cannot eek more frames, all you can do is increase your graphics load (turn up your graphical settings) until that's the bottleneck to force the CPU to chill.

Lowering your graphics only increases the burden on your CPU.

If you're pushing ~100fps, that's basically all that a Zen 3 chip can push in this title. <-- If this is true, there's probably nothing wrong with your system.

[MEOWgician]

I tested increasing the graphics settings, including setting Ultra Supersampling, but CPU usage remains the same.

On an empty map, the CPU load is around 65% at 150 FPS. However, as soon as enemies start attacking, the CPU usage spikes to 100%, and the FPS drops to around 60. I understand that the CPU is likely handling more physics calculations when there are many enemies, which explains the increased load during combat.

What I don’t understand is why the CPU usage reaches 85% while just standing on the ship, even with no active combat or complex calculations happening.

[Pierre117]

Originally posted by MEOWgician:

I tested increasing the graphics settings, including setting Ultra Supersampling, but CPU usage remains the same.

What I don’t understand is why the CPU usage reaches 85% while just standing on the ship, even with no active combat or complex calculations happening.

Interesting. What CPU do you have?

Try maxing all the settings that use GPU such as Texture Quality, Object Detail Quality, Anti-Aliasing, Supersampling and have everything else on lowest setting

[wyborne]

render distance = lowest

[Voodoochile]

Because the game engine is a mess. It's a known issue. Actually not even an issue, it's pretty much how the game works.
Even the best CPUs on the market are getting wrecked by this game, let alone a 5600.
Game pretty much runs at 100% CPU usage all the time and also, by overclocking it, you are making things even worse in terms of temperatures, because it's more likely it thermal throttles because of that, further reducing your FPS.

[Delta Dagger]

Originally posted by Voodoochile:

Because the game engine is a mess. It's a known issue. Actually not even an issue, it's pretty much how the game works.
Even the best CPUs on the market are getting wrecked by this game, let alone a 5600.
Game pretty much runs at 100% CPU usage all the time and also, by overclocking it, you are making things even worse in terms of temperatures, because it's more likely it thermal throttles because of that, further reducing your FPS.

Sticking with this engine was not the best idea, but I'm assuming it was done out of necessity.

[Voodoochile]

Originally posted by Delta Dagger:

Originally posted by Voodoochile:

Because the game engine is a mess. It's a known issue. Actually not even an issue, it's pretty much how the game works.
Even the best CPUs on the market are getting wrecked by this game, let alone a 5600.
Game pretty much runs at 100% CPU usage all the time and also, by overclocking it, you are making things even worse in terms of temperatures, because it's more likely it thermal throttles because of that, further reducing your FPS.

Sticking with this engine was not the best idea, but I'm assuming it was done out of necessity.

Doesn't really matter (because we are stuck with it for sure). What matters to OP is that he needs to forget running the game with uncapped FPS, unless he is looking for replacing his CPU soon or at the very least re-pasting it every month.

Cap FPS at 60 but not with the in-game limiter (this one is bugged so it causes 100% CPU usage even at 60fps, so GG).
Then use frame generation like AFMF or LSFG to get 120fps from 60fps at no CPU cost.
The 7900 XT has enough headroom for the Frame Generation.

[Jonny Sparta]

What I've done to improve cpu utilization on my 5800x3d / 3070 setup.

- Process Lasso to disable smt since hd2 only heavily loads a few cores forcing the game to run on 'real' cores instead of virtual ones improved performance.

- Frame cap + frame gen from Lossless Scaling (5$ on steam)


End result - I run the game capped at 54 fps via Nvcp then 3x frame gen with LS to give me a nice stable 165 fps.

[Brother Belial]

Game doesn't like AMD. Talk to anyone with issues, and they have an AMD CPU 99%.

[Delta Dagger]

Originally posted by Jonny Sparta:

What I've done to improve cpu utilization on my 5800x3d / 3070 setup.

- Process Lasso to disable smt since hd2 only heavily loads a few cores forcing the game to run on 'real' cores instead of virtual ones improved performance.

- Frame cap + frame gen from Lossless Scaling (5$ on steam)


End result - I run the game capped at 54 fps via Nvcp then 3x frame gen with LS to give me a nice stable 165 fps.

Have you had stability issues at all with Process Lasso? Last time I used it, I got some semi-frequent BSODs on a previous system. It either didn't like my RAM or didn't like my HOTAS at the time.

[Voodoochile]

Originally posted by Brother Belial:

Game doesn't like AMD. Talk to anyone with issues, and they have an AMD CPU 99%.

Unfortunately, it's not just AMD. One quick search on this discussion board and we can see all kind of complaints dating as far back as launch day.

[shitass]

Game has ♥♥♥♥ cpu optimisation, especially on illuminate missions. There my 7600 is pretty much always stuck on 100% usage

[gothicpando]

Welcome! To Helldivers 2!!!!

[✘States]

Something I'm struggling with too, like what can you actually do about it? Even cyberpunk doesn't put the CPU through this much hell

[ImYourN1ghtMare]

Originally posted by ✘States:

Something I'm struggling with too, like what can you actually do about it? Even cyberpunk doesn't put the CPU through this much hell

different game - different engine - different load. so dont compare