GTX 560 ti low GPU usage

Forum Graphics & Displays : Graphics Cards GTX 560 ti low GPU usage

My specs :
core i3 550 @3.3GHz
GTX560 ti 1gb
8gb ADATA 1333 RAM
550watt OCZ Fatal1ty PSU
no disk drive installed

The games I play are WoW, RIFT, Skyrim and BF3.

My Wow nearly runs perfect with 99% GPU usage

but when I play either of the other 3 games I get low GPU usage and pretty bad frames sometimes:

RIFT 25% GPU usage fps drops under 20
BF3 50% GPU usage get about 25-30 fps
SKYRIM 50% GPU usage 40+ FPS, which is playable but could be better.

is there any way to fix this problem? I was leaning towards the idea bottle necking, but my RIFT ran better with my old card (GTS450) which means it is definitely not bottle necking.

Reply to datfreek

Do all the games run better with the GTS450, or just RIFT?

I am guessing CPU bottleneck. Thats a dual core you have there and some newer games. You might need more CPU power. If the GPU isn't getting info fast enough, you'll see that 25-50%+ GPU usage. So unless your CPU is saying <80% usage its probably a CPU bottleneck.

------------------------------ The voice of REASON
Do NOT feed the TROLLS!
Always a DEMON!
Reply to 4745454b

I am getting 35-50% CPU usage

Another thing would be that, no matter what settings i put any of these games on it still performs the same. from ultra to low, the performance doesn't change at all.

the first few days I had this card I was running BF3 at ultra at 45-60 FPS

also skyrim is made for the lower end, since it is console friendly. I should be able to run it nearly maxxed.

Message edited by datfreek on 11-27-2011 at 10:41:44 AM

Reply to datfreek

The likely cause would be your CPU given the 3 games you have low GPU usage on. RIFT, being a MMO, will require a lot of CPU power. Although WoW is also an MMO, even my old single core Pentium 4 could run that game no problem so your CPU is fine there. Skyrim as I've heard also requires a lot of CPU speed. BF3 requires a lot of CPU power in big multiplayer maps/scenarios, although in single player you should find it running much better as that is more GPU dependent.

I don't remember exact numbers, but Ultra skyrim does need some horsepower to run. Also thinking back to the toms article CF doesn't work in skyrim yet. AMD said they will get us drivers, but I haven't heard if they've arrived yet. This is why people need to test with more then one game.

If the CPU usage is only 50%ish no matter the game, then perhaps a different bottleneck? I don't remember this thread exactly, but make sure you have a clean system, enough power, etc.

------------------------------ The voice of REASON
Do NOT feed the TROLLS!
Always a DEMON!
Reply to 4745454b

I had a similar, possibly the exact same problem, back when BFBC2 came out. I had bought a gtx 470 to go along with my Q6600 which was at 3.2ghz. My FPS didn't change compared to my 8800gts.

After some time i chose to upgrade my platform, while the process did fix the issue, it wasn't a platform problem. Turns out, few months later, that it was a driver issue concerning that game, lga775 processors, and 400 series gpus.

In short, it's most likely driver related. Definitely not a CPU bottleneck. Friend of mine has that processor paired with my old gtx470 and it does very well in BF3.

Message edited by lucuis on 11-27-2011 at 01:45:10 PM

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Reply to lucuis

The thing that stumps me is the graphical jump between rift and BF3, sure rift does look great. but the servers have low-medium populations, I shouldn't be getting 15fps in an empty area with a few trees, even if I were to stare completely at the ground. I would still get 15fps. While in battlefield on a 64 player server with all the chaos and explosions everywhere, It runs a tad bit better. Even though its on ultra.

and yes turning the settings all the way up and all the way down does nothing for the FPS.

I'm thinking it could be possible that my HDD is bottle necking my system, I will have to check that out.

Message edited by datfreek on 11-27-2011 at 07:56:25 PM

Reply to datfreek

I'm running SLI GTX 570s with an i7 2600k and 8gb of RAM.

Not a slouch system by any measure.

I get as little as 30fps in the towns on 1680x1050. CPU usage barely goes above 50% and the GPU usage seems to fluctuate a lot, and gets LOW when the FPS gets low.

I also had this same bug in BF3 and BFBC2 back when I ran a Phenom II X6 1100t (until day before yesterday that was) and now the bug is gone from those games, but remains in Skyrim. Metro 2033 has always been exempt from this bug in my experience.

So yes, definitely driver related, and NOT CPU related. Unless you are stating both my 1100t and 2600k are SLOW CPUs...

Reply to Horrux

That is an interesting problem .... What res are you gaming at?

Also ....not sure how you ran BF3 on Ultra at 40-60 with a 560 Ti when a 580GTX has trouble doing that ..... That does however seem weird, sounds like the card is bogging down can you run furmark and give us temps? And what settings exactly on rift AA/AF res, vsync etc. WoW is old ......so running it on ultra and highest settings is not hard so it is a poor guide for judgement. You may have a faulty card.

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Reply to envymert

also monitor the clocks of both the cpu and gpu, so they aren't entering idle states because of some driver error... assuming the temps are good

Reply to Kari

envymert wrote :

The low GPU utilization bug is a very well known and documented nVidia problem. People have been fighting it for years, literally since the GTX 4xx series came into the world. nVidia refuses to acknowledge there is a problem, meantime manufacturers are often "unable to reproduce the problem", so they say, and return you your faulty card. The problem might very well be in the software, but either way, many of us are SOL.

Reply to Horrux

I run at 1600x900, on a pretty small widescreen, my AA/MSAA is very low on BF3, but everything else is on ultra, thats how BF3 ran at 40-60fps.

Reply to datfreek

I used to have the same setup i3 (oc to 4.5ghz) 8gb ram gtx560ti twinfrozr (oc to 1ghz). The i3 is to culprit i went to a i7 my games are 100x better now and am able to run at 1080 res. i play ff14 and skyrim with 45-60 fps. my just cause 2 max settings benchmark averages 59.36 before with the i3 i was unable to pass 36. I wanted to comment on skyrim real quick i noticed that there are alot of people saying they run it on ultra with the same graphics card i believe they are lying. When you bump up shaders to high it caps out the gpu to 99% and runs poorly even with a 1ghz overclock. i don't think the gtx560ti has the capabilities that a lot of people are saying it has. I am convinced you need sli to get it to the status people are boasting it to be. With that said i think it is by far the best card for the money though and i am amazed at its performance i just wish the gt560ti community was a little more honest about it's performance and didn't over exaggerate its capabilities. I notice also there is a big difference between benchmark performance and in game when testing. Ultimately i chose the 560 with intentions on sli otherwise i would have spent more money on a single card with more cores. Hope this helps

Reply to pilgrum