Steam Games 100% GPU Usage

[Daisu]

I've gone through the trouble of testing multiple PC parts and builds, this seems to be unrelated to the issue.

Some Steam games (and these are often cheap $0.90 games that do this) use 100% GPU power, up to 30% CPU and up to 2 GB of RAM. Remember, these are the games that can be run on i3 1st gen CPUs (cause of how small these games are). They don't always consume this much power from all of your PC components, but it's usually the GPU.

These are the things I've tried:
- Reduce the resolution of the game(s). This works, but it only reduces the GPU usage by a small margin, the issue still remains.
- Tried different GPUs, PCs. The result is the same, like I mentioned above, it's not a hardware issue, or at least it doesn't seem like it is.
- Often times these games don't have FPS, Resolution, Graphics control, so you're stuck with whatever it's set to.

What these games seem to be doing is that they don't have a limit of how much power they draw from your GPU, or your PC as a whole, and regardless of the performance of the game, these games keep on drawing the power from the GPU (usually) and this causes your GPU usage to be at 100% (or whatever you have ur GPU limits set to), which might cause issues (or at least that's what people think), but there's nothing wrong with 100% GPU usage.

But something that can actually cause issues is your GPU temperature limits. A lot of people might not be aware and their GPUs might overheat (which is quite hard, GPUs can work on incredibly high temp), but still, the fact that small games do this to your GPU is worrying.

I haven't found a fix for this, which is why I wanted to talk about it. There's no solution for this problem on the internet, so if someone knows a way to solve this problem, it will help the people that are worried about this.

Edit: The best solution ended up being enabling Vsync in Nvidia control panel. Thanks for the suggestions :)

[Heretic]

Originally posted by Insignia:

using 100% of your GPU is a GOOD thing.

Not when malware is mining on it. The only games that even get close for me are VR games.

[Phoenix]

Have you tried turning on/forcing vsync?

[Crazy Tiger]

It happens, yes, and such games then produce a 1000 FPS or such nonsense. Use the GPU controll settings to force Vsync if the games don't offer it.

[B-o-B]

NVidia control panel and lock the fps limit.
Probably the same for that other GPU brands control panel.

[Daisu]

Originally posted by Phoenix:

Have you tried turning on/forcing vsync?

These games have no options to control (turn on/off) vsync, no way of adjusting the resolution or FPS. These are not VR games, just your regular cheap low quality games.

[Heretic]

Originally posted by Daisu:

These games have no options to control (turn on/off) vsync, no way of adjusting the resolution or FPS. These are not VR games, just your regular cheap low quality games.

Override V-Sync in driver. For Nvidia I would do it with a game profile, so it's not global.

[Daisu]

Originally posted by B-o-B:

NVidia control panel and lock the fps limit.
Probably the same for that other GPU brands control panel.

This actually works quite well. It reduced the GPU usage down to 60% (at 60 FPS limit) and it cut the CPU usage in half, RAM wasn't affected.

I guess out of all the things I've tried, this one gave me the best result.

[Daisu]

Originally posted by Mind:

Originally posted by Daisu:

These games have no options to control (turn on/off) vsync, no way of adjusting the resolution or FPS. These are not VR games, just your regular cheap low quality games.

Override V-Sync in driver. For Nvidia I would do it with a game profile, so it's not global.

Yeah, this is what I tried just now. I disabled the FPS limit (set it back to default). Only thing I ended up changing in the end was Vsync, I enabled it in Nvidia control panel. It actually gave me the best results overall. Lowest GPU/CPU/RAM usage.

[Phoenix]

Originally posted by Daisu:

Originally posted by Phoenix:

Have you tried turning on/forcing vsync?

These games have no options to control (turn on/off) vsync, no way of adjusting the resolution or FPS. These are not VR games, just your regular cheap low quality games.

Originally posted by Mind:

Override V-Sync in driver

This, but I guess you already figured out why the "quality" of games doesn't factor into this at all.

[Mad Scientist]

Use your GPU manufacturers software to set the FPS limit or turn on v-sync, problem solved. Just set it for the game itself, not globally, unless you want it globally applied.

Originally posted by Insignia:

using 100% of your GPU is a GOOD thing.

Not really, especially for old games.

Originally posted by Daisu:

Originally posted by B-o-B:

NVidia control panel and lock the fps limit.
Probably the same for that other GPU brands control panel.

This actually works quite well. It reduced the GPU usage down to 60% (at 60 FPS limit) and it cut the CPU usage in half, RAM wasn't affected.

I guess out of all the things I've tried, this one gave me the best result.

What GPU are you even using that it's still 60%? Also are they Valve games, or just "Steam games" as in games on Steam?

[Satoru]

Originally posted by Mind:

Originally posted by Insignia:

using 100% of your GPU is a GOOD thing.

Not when malware is mining on it. The only games that even get close for me are VR games.

note that a game using 100% of your GPU is not evidence of malware

[Satoru]

Note you don't mention what your system speacs are. Because if you hve a GT710 then yes you are likey going to be GPU bound

Saying a game uses 100% ofyour GPU is meaningless unless you provide actual context such as

1) what are your system specs
2) what games are you playing
3) how are you actually measuring this

[Gaming Inpatient]

Doesn’t Nvidia still offer a list for which games you want vsync turned on and to control framerate limits?

[brochalie]

Use your GPU software to limit frames