GTX 980 Ti drops in usage cause lower FPS.

deeper02 · Oct 19, 2015

When I play GTA 5 for example at very ultra settings, the GPU is 97% maxed out, however when I lower the settings to very high to get a playable fps, what happens is that the GPU utilization just drops to around 70% when driving around, although in high render situations it goes back up to 85% ish with the same settings. What I am trying to get here is that if I lower my settings to get higher FPS the GPU utilization also drops therefore I end up with only slightly increased FPS since my card is not being used to the max. I have noticed this in order games such as shadow of mordor with usage of 85% on ultra settings and metro:LL with usage of 75% on ultra settings (no msaa)

This is my rig:
Intel Xeon 1231v3 clocked at 3.7 gHz (maximum turbo clock) + Cooled by CM Nepton 140xl
AsRock Z97 Extreme6
16 GB of Kingston Ram at 1600 mHz
Reference GTX 980 Ti (Clock Speed 1370 mHz, Memory Speed at 3900 mHz)
Corsair RMi 750w

astonerii · Oct 19, 2015

You might be using all your GPU memory and thus not being able to feed it the information it needs quickly enough.

unksol · Oct 19, 2015

That is a CPU bottleneck

Blatcher2 · Oct 19, 2015

deeper02 :

Resolution?

1080p = CPU Bottleneck I would check your CPU usage. If it's above 80% there is a good chance it is causing a bottleneck. My 3570k @4.6Ghz would run at 80 to 90% usage (with 60% usage on my 1.5 Ghz gigabyte 980ti) in BF4 @ 110 fps. Now my 5820k @ 4.3 Ghzruns it @ 160 - 180 fps.

Even if you are running at a higher resolution, and a processor upgrade is out of the question, try to close all other applications and optimize the settings to lower CPU usage. GTA V is super processor intensive and I see my GPU usage drop at times as well. Just turn up graphics settings and enjoy extra eye candy at the same fps.

Hope this helped

deeper02 · Oct 19, 2015

Blatcher2 :

deeper02 :

Resolution?

1080p = CPU Bottleneck I would check your CPU usage. If it's above 80% there is a good chance it is causing a bottleneck. My 3570k @4.6Ghz would run at 80 to 90% usage (with 60% usage on my 1.5 Ghz gigabyte 980ti) in BF4 @ 110 fps. Now my 5820k @ 4.3 Ghzruns it @ 160 - 180 fps.

Even if you are running at a higher resolution, and a processor upgrade is out of the question, try to close all other applications and optimize the settings to lower CPU usage. GTA V is super processor intensive and I see my GPU usage drop at times as well. Just turn up graphics settings and enjoy extra eye candy at the same fps.

Hope this helped

My CPU usage is actually quite low, sitting only at around 40-60% usage while in some games like shadow of mordor it drops to 30% CPU usage. Also im running at 1080p

aston: I am only using 3 GB of my 6GB total ram so I dont think that's the issue.

It is very strange that when I reduce the settings to High, the GPU usage goes to 45% giving me around 85fps average, but come on 45% usage?

Finkledbody · Oct 19, 2015

Edit: Correction**

OP. It must be your CPU. With my set-up (see sig) I get 100-125fps (avg. 118) @ 1080p in GTA 5 with maximum settings, no AA.

With Max settings, Long shadows on, maximum extended distanced scaling, maximum extended shadows distance, hmaximum distance detail framing while flying, MSAA x8, no vsync. I get 55-75 fps. (avg. 65)

deeper02 · Oct 19, 2015

Finkledbody :

Isn't the Xeon 1231 like a i7 4790? How is it possible for my CPU to bottleneck the card?
Well I can still get an i5 4960k if I have to I guess.

Finkledbody · Oct 19, 2015

OP, I corrected my post to provide the most accurate information as possible.

deeper02 · Oct 19, 2015

Finkledbody :

If I put everything on max just like you did I get 53fps average with my gpu used around 97-99%

Finkledbody · Oct 19, 2015

That does seem like a significant difference. Are you able to overclock the CPU any further?
Or perhaps start with a mild overclock on your GPU. Perhaps +100mhz GPU offset

Reaper_7799 · Oct 19, 2015

I don't get 75 fps fully maxed with everything advanced maxed and msaax8....I think it's more like 55-63 in the city and outside the city no way is it above 60fps...more like 50. And that's with a healthy overclock 1480Mhz or so.

I'll go double check it though to make sure.

EDIT: So like 60-70 in the city, maybe 63 average...outside the city about 10fps less. That's stock speed though for my I7, so it may get a few more if I overclock it but I'm too lazy right now and footballs comin on.

Reaper_7799 · Oct 19, 2015

It shouldn't be running that low usage on several different games though...open gpuz and hw monitor sensor tabs, open them up before you play and go play one of those games it does it in for like 10 min maybe, leave the sensors tab open and take a couple screenshots of the gpuz tab with usage,clock speed, temps and also hw info just the cpu portion with usage, temps and clock speeds.

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

http://www.hwinfo.com/

deeper02 · Oct 20, 2015

Reaper_7799 :

I have these displayed in game by msi afterburner.
My GPU temps never go above 71C since I have set the fans to 60% during gaming. The base clock of the GPU is 1000 mHz, during gaming it goes up to 1375 mHz GPU clock and 3888 mHz memory clock (overclocked in msi afterburner). CPU temps are around 45C under 50-60% load. The CPU is clocked at 3.7gHz because that's the maximum it can go with Turbo Boost (It's not unlocked).

Furthermore I have ran several tests in 3d Mark Firestrike and I get a GPU score of 18900, and my CPU Physics score is 11000, these results seem to be right for my current setup.

Reaper_7799 · Oct 20, 2015

I forget what usage is what at 1080p, I mostly play at 1440P or 4K and my usage is different. That looks good and you're firestrike score looks normal at those clock speeds for graphics and physics test.

Mordor has a 100 fps cap, that's why usage is low on that game, there's a way to turn it off in one of the config files. I get 70% usage on mordor at 1080P.

Metro last light though, I have the redux one, it runs at 90-98% usage though at 1080P, even lowered to high settings with 250 fps plus or something like that.

GTAV, gpu usage fluctuates for me too so I wouldn't worry too much about it. I lowered my clock speeds on my gpu to match yours at 1375 Mhz and I got what you got with everything maxed and msaa x8 ...probably around 54-55 fps average...usage stayed fairly high 95% but it does spike to 80 or 85 and then back up but that's the unoptimization in that game.

Reaper_7799 · Oct 20, 2015

As far as GTA V goes and usage low to get higher fps, I'd have to say you're cpu limited, but I am too at stock speeds on my i7 at least. I didn't test it with overclock yet but I just went to mostly high settings, not all with msaa off but advanced still maxed...and it's around 95 fps or so but gpu usage is wayyy low...70% or even 65% and my cpu usage looks like it's getting pushed hard...almost every thread is in the 50% plus range with my main threads at 80%. That's at your gpu clock speed too.

I still think something is off if you are not hitting 100 fps in mordor at 1080P even with everything maxed and fxaa, it pretty much pegs 100 fps although it will drop to 95 fps sometimes, and usage is 75%...that's at your clock speeds 1375.

deeper02 · Oct 20, 2015

Reaper_7799 :

I did some reruns and in Shadow of Mordor it does actually hit about 97 ish average which seems to fit your results.
Metro:LL however straight out 'fixed itself' now usage is at 97% with everything on expect obviously SSAA.

I checked the new Battlefront game while back and I got 127fps avg on ultra, which also seems to fit the rest of people's results. So it appears to me this GPU problem is very much GTA 5 limited for some reason.

I mark your answer as the solution as you have been very helpful thank you very much!

Reaper_7799 · Oct 20, 2015

Good deal man, you're welcome...I think that's about what I got in 1080P too on battlefront, can't totally remember tho cause I was on 4K. Yeah GTAV is kind of garbage optimization, cool game though and looks great at higher resolutions and fully maxed.

GTX 980 Ti drops in usage cause lower FPS.

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