Guys how do i know if a game is CPU or GPU intensive ?

[CyberBeast]

Just wanted to ask how to know if the game is using your gpu most or cpu mostly, in other words how to know if the game your playing is cpu or gpu intensive or a mix of both. thanks

[Zefar]

It might be hard to tell on just a glance but if I where to guess it's like this.

If it looks really good it might be more GPU intensive.

If it has a lot of AI on the field it's probably more CPU intensive.

Those are imo the only two clear way I'd say you can guess games on.

Because RTS games are often quite hard on the CPU but not so much on the GPU. But a good looking game might just need the graphic card to do more work. It's still going to ask for a good CPU as well to balance it out.

[CyberBeast]

Originally posted by Zefar:

It might be hard to tell on just a glance but if I where to guess it's like this.

If it looks really good it might be more GPU intensive.

If it has a lot of AI on the field it's probably more CPU intensive.

Those are imo the only two clear way I'd say you can guess games on.

Because RTS games are often quite hard on the CPU but not so much on the GPU. But a good looking game might just need the graphic card to do more work. It's still going to ask for a good CPU as well to balance it out.

ok what about the cpu/gpu load, do they indicate that the game is cpu/gpu intensive ?

[76561198407601200]

Originally posted by CyberBeast:

Originally posted by Zefar:

It might be hard to tell on just a glance but if I where to guess it's like this.

If it looks really good it might be more GPU intensive.

If it has a lot of AI on the field it's probably more CPU intensive.

Those are imo the only two clear way I'd say you can guess games on.

Because RTS games are often quite hard on the CPU but not so much on the GPU. But a good looking game might just need the graphic card to do more work. It's still going to ask for a good CPU as well to balance it out.

ok what about the cpu/gpu load, do they indicate that the game is cpu/gpu intensive ?

This can be determined from the system requirements on the game's store page. If the minimum is i5 and 6gb ram and a gtx670 (as example), then that will give you a gauge to what is needed to run the game.

[Autumn_]

Originally posted by CyberBeast:

Originally posted by Zefar:

It might be hard to tell on just a glance but if I where to guess it's like this.

If it looks really good it might be more GPU intensive.

If it has a lot of AI on the field it's probably more CPU intensive.

Those are imo the only two clear way I'd say you can guess games on.

Because RTS games are often quite hard on the CPU but not so much on the GPU. But a good looking game might just need the graphic card to do more work. It's still going to ask for a good CPU as well to balance it out.

ok what about the cpu/gpu load, do they indicate that the game is cpu/gpu intensive ?

Not exactly, because with Vsync (and other frame limiters disabled) you can get your GPU to use 95-100% in some of the CPU heaviest titles.
For example, GTA5, that's pretty CPU heavy (Quadcores pegged to 99-100%, and 6 cores at pretty high usage as well), but they can maintain 95%+ GPU load.

My advice, don't worry to much about it, it'll do it's thing regardless, and you can always tweak settings.

If you're worried about your PC not being able to run a game, then you should look up a bunch of videos on Youtube, or read some articles.
They should tell you enough, almost every hardware combo out there has been tested; so all you've gotta do is type your CPU, GPU, RAM, and game you want to play into Youtube, and see what framerates they're getting, and if there's any stutter. Decide if you're going to enjoy playing like that, and buy if you think you will.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

As someone whose hardware consists of an old laptop with an integrated graphics card, here's my rule of thumb:

* full-2D games: generally okay
* 2.5D games: may work, depending on optimization.
* 3D games: older ones may work, if they have settings to turn down to minimum. Newer ones, don't bet on it. Checking benchmark score on Passmark of the minimum required graphics card vs. your graphics card can help. And if the game has lots of particle effects, it'll run horribly.

One problem is that, with the expectation that people have computing power, more and more games these days don't bother with optimizing their code. It's like how games no longer compress their game data, because devs expect people to have disk space. Both are kinda annoying.

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by CyberBeast:

Just wanted to ask how to know if the game is using your gpu most or cpu mostly, in other words how to know if the game your playing is cpu or gpu intensive or a mix of both. thanks

Some games can be both, CPU, GPU and Ram intensive.
Look at the specs.
If you see an i7 under recommended.. the game is probably going to gobble some cpu resources.
For GPU if you see anothing above a 700 in recommended it means the game is going to be fairly gpu intensive.

Keep in mind that the VRAM is imporrtant, some games require powerful gpus but not so much ram, and others require relatively weak gpus but a lot of vram.

[Garou]

On Windows 10 press windows button + G and you should see one of the windows containing CPU, GPU and RAM tabs and percentage of use for each.

[Bad_Conduct]

Originally posted by CyberBeast:

Originally posted by Zefar:

It might be hard to tell on just a glance but if I where to guess it's like this.

If it looks really good it might be more GPU intensive.

If it has a lot of AI on the field it's probably more CPU intensive.

Those are imo the only two clear way I'd say you can guess games on.

Because RTS games are often quite hard on the CPU but not so much on the GPU. But a good looking game might just need the graphic card to do more work. It's still going to ask for a good CPU as well to balance it out.

ok what about the cpu/gpu load, do they indicate that the game is cpu/gpu intensive ?

If your FPS is good, and your GPU is at 100%, you are hitting a GPU bottleneck.
If your FPS is bad, and your GPU is at 100%, you are hitting a GPU bottleneck and you need a better GPU.

If your FPS is bad, and your GPU is less than 100%, you are potentially hitting a CPU bottleneck. That would be a CPU intensive game.

If you run a really old game, with no FPS cap, you should be getting 100% GPU usage and 3000 FPS. The GPU will always run as high as possible and push out as many FPS as possible, unless you cap it.

CPU usage you need measure per thread, not the sum. 25% of a quad core CPU is very low, but a single thread at 100% and the rest at 0% actually would be a problem.

[CyberBeast]

Originally posted by Bad_Conduct:

Originally posted by CyberBeast:

ok what about the cpu/gpu load, do they indicate that the game is cpu/gpu intensive ?

If your FPS is good, and your GPU is at 100%, you are hitting a GPU bottleneck.
If your FPS is bad, and your GPU is at 100%, you are hitting a GPU bottleneck and you need a better GPU.

If your FPS is bad, and your GPU is less than 100%, you are potentially hitting a CPU bottleneck. That would be a CPU intensive game.

If you run a really old game, with no FPS cap, you should be getting 100% GPU usage and 3000 FPS. The GPU will always run as high as possible and push out as many FPS as possible, unless you cap it.

CPU usage you need measure per thread, not the sum. 25% of a quad core CPU is very low, but a single thread at 100% and the rest at 0% actually would be a problem.

thats not true,

if gpu usage > 90%

and cpu usage > 70%

then there is a problem with the game.
*******************************************************

if gpu usage > 90%

and cpu usage < 70%

then there is no problem with the game and its excellent
******************************************************


if gpu usage < 70%

and cpu usage > 90%

then You have a Bottleneck (Cpu affect FPS in a bad way)

note:
if gpu usage > 90%

and cpu usage > 70%

**IN ALL GAMES** then this is a bottleneck, but if its only in a one or 2 games then thats fine

[Bad_Conduct]

Originally posted by CyberBeast:

Originally posted by Bad_Conduct:

If your FPS is good, and your GPU is at 100%, you are hitting a GPU bottleneck.
If your FPS is bad, and your GPU is at 100%, you are hitting a GPU bottleneck and you need a better GPU.

If your FPS is bad, and your GPU is less than 100%, you are potentially hitting a CPU bottleneck. That would be a CPU intensive game.

If you run a really old game, with no FPS cap, you should be getting 100% GPU usage and 3000 FPS. The GPU will always run as high as possible and push out as many FPS as possible, unless you cap it.

CPU usage you need measure per thread, not the sum. 25% of a quad core CPU is very low, but a single thread at 100% and the rest at 0% actually would be a problem.

thats not true,

if gpu usage > 90%

and cpu usage > 70%

then there is a problem with the game.
*******************************************************

if gpu usage > 90%

and cpu usage < 70%

then there is no problem with the game and its excellent
******************************************************


if gpu usage < 70%

and cpu usage > 90%

then You have a Bottleneck (Cpu affect FPS in a bad way)

note:
if gpu usage > 90%

and cpu usage > 70%

**IN ALL GAMES** then this is a bottleneck, but if its only in a one or 2 games then thats fine

GPU typically goes around 90% if it's thermal throttling, not from the game....

Also do you mean CPU or thread? I'll never hit 20% utilization on my processor, and it will pin threads.

[Autumn_]

Originally posted by Bad_Conduct:

Originally posted by CyberBeast:

thats not true,

if gpu usage > 90%

and cpu usage > 70%

then there is a problem with the game.
*******************************************************

if gpu usage > 90%

and cpu usage < 70%

then there is no problem with the game and its excellent
******************************************************


if gpu usage < 70%

and cpu usage > 90%

then You have a Bottleneck (Cpu affect FPS in a bad way)

note:
if gpu usage > 90%

and cpu usage > 70%

**IN ALL GAMES** then this is a bottleneck, but if its only in a one or 2 games then thats fine

GPU typically goes around 90% if it's thermal throttling, not from the game....

Also do you mean CPU or thread? I'll never hit 20% utilization on my processor, and it will pin threads.

Errrh, what? A GPU with 90% usage won't ''thermal throttle.''

[Bad_Conduct]

Originally posted by Autumn:

Originally posted by Bad_Conduct:

GPU typically goes around 90% if it's thermal throttling, not from the game....

Also do you mean CPU or thread? I'll never hit 20% utilization on my processor, and it will pin threads.

Errrh, what? A GPU with 90% usage won't ''thermal throttle.''

A GPU at 90% usage is dropping from 100% usage, because it's hitting it's thermal limit and utilizing less resource to drop the temperature.

[Autumn_]

Originally posted by Bad_Conduct:

Originally posted by Autumn:

Errrh, what? A GPU with 90% usage won't ''thermal throttle.''

A GPU at 90% usage is dropping from 100% usage, because it's hitting it's thermal limit and utilizing less resource to drop the temperature.

No, it's not. You can have lower usage without '''hitting a thermal limit.'''

And, it doesn't ''use less resources'' it downclocks.

[CyberBeast]

Originally posted by Bad_Conduct:

Originally posted by Autumn:

Errrh, what? A GPU with 90% usage won't ''thermal throttle.''

A GPU at 90% usage is dropping from 100% usage, because it's hitting it's thermal limit and utilizing less resource to drop the temperature.

no you obviously dont know what your talking about, being at 90-100% is not thermal throttle, its and if your cpu is under 30% its not normal as games like rts will need cpu usage power a lot, meaning if your cpu is under 20% in most games you, then there will be games you wont be able to play with high fps like assasins creed and gta 5 and rts games with millions of packets to be processed.

[Bad_Conduct]

Originally posted by CyberBeast:

Originally posted by Bad_Conduct:

A GPU at 90% usage is dropping from 100% usage, because it's hitting it's thermal limit and utilizing less resource to drop the temperature.

no you obviously dont know what your talking about, being at 90-100% is not thermal throttle, its and if your cpu is under 30% its not normal as games like rts will need cpu usage power a lot, meaning if your cpu is under 20% in most games you, then there will be games you wont be able to play with high fps like assasins creed and gta 5 and rts games with millions of packets to be processed.

I have 24 threads, my CPU never hits 30%. Ever.

That's not the same as a thread.

GPU usage reading isn't always accurate, when the boost jumps up and down, it can report incorrect usage. It's rate it actually hits 100%, but I think we are talking about the same thing. The ~10% difference is just margin of error, I misread his post.