The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Low framerate, but low GPU and CPU utilization
Klein
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I've noticed that sometimes when I am playing a game, my framerate will have sustained drops while my CPU and GPU utilization is low. Even older games, like Starcraft II, have this issue, though it is a pretty CPU heavy game. Are there any reasons why my framerate is low but my computer is not utilizing all the hardware, and is there something I should look at to fix this issue?
My computer specs:
CPU: i5 6300 HQ, 4 core, 4 threads, 2.3 GHz idle, 3.2 GHz boost
GPU: GTX 1060
16 gb of ram
No idea what my ram speed is, but it's DDR3
7200 rpm HDD
I'm not playing super demanding games that use up a lot of ram, at most my utilization is about ~8-10 gb. My temperatures are also fine, at the highest I hit 75 C for my CPU, so I know I don't have thermal throttling or a ram bottleneck. I could move some games to a SSD, but I do not have enough space for all of them. I am not sure if it is a hard drive issue either as these are sustained drops in areas of games where everything is loaded. I am typically not running any background programs besides Discord and the game launcher. I have not tried to reinstall Windows, it's been about three years since I had this computer so maybe that is something I could try.
My computer specs:
CPU: i5 6300 HQ, 4 core, 4 threads, 2.3 GHz idle, 3.2 GHz boost
GPU: GTX 1060
16 gb of ram
No idea what my ram speed is, but it's DDR3
7200 rpm HDD
I'm not playing super demanding games that use up a lot of ram, at most my utilization is about ~8-10 gb. My temperatures are also fine, at the highest I hit 75 C for my CPU, so I know I don't have thermal throttling or a ram bottleneck. I could move some games to a SSD, but I do not have enough space for all of them. I am not sure if it is a hard drive issue either as these are sustained drops in areas of games where everything is loaded. I am typically not running any background programs besides Discord and the game launcher. I have not tried to reinstall Windows, it's been about three years since I had this computer so maybe that is something I could try.
0
Posts
Try running CrystalDiskInfo* and see if it gives the health of your hdd a green light.
Also it could just be some background thing messing things up, try looking in your task manager and check what is running - at the very least I bet you can spot some processes that do not need to run constantly. If so look at Services and disable those you don't need.
*It is a free handy tool to retrieve the SMART info from your drives fx. in this old computer of mine the oldest SSD is close to have been running for 62,000 hours(it used to sit in a 24/7 server).
Thanks for the advice, I think I may have found the cause of my issue. It turns out, I had vertical sync on, so the game would sit at 60 fps, bu then sometimes drop to 20-40 fps. With vertical sync off, I'm now averaging 70-90 fps for Starcraft II. I'm kind of disappointed I didn't try this first rather than live with these framerate issues for so long.
You are welcome. Sounds odd that disabling v-sync made such a change, but main thing it has fixed it. You might try and enable vsync again, just to check that is what made the difference and not just that you changing settings triggered the fix in itself.