GPU Problem (Not using 100%)

[BMARX123]

Hi forum,

I am not getting the performance I am expecting out of PC (Specs down below). I purchased Watch Dogs and Dragon Age: Inquisition and neither of them run smoothly. Upon further examination I realized that the activity level on my GPU ( Radeon HD 7970 Ghz) was only reaching 60%. Is this what would cause the issue, and if so how would I fix it?

Specific Problems with each game:

Watch Dogs: On lowest settings it only hits 50 fps, on ultra it hovers around 30

DAI: Hovers around 30 fps, about every 30 seconds or so it drops to 0 then jumps back up to 30

According to various benchmarking websites my GPU should be able to at least hit 45 fps on ultra. I am running on the latest AMD drivers. Any help with these various problems would be greatly appreciated.

 

[futurefields]

What is your CPU?

 

[BMARX123]

what is your cpu?

amd fx-8350

 

[tential]

Post your settings page for each game so we can see the exact settings you're using as well. That will help.

But in reality you posted:
Watch Dogs: A Horribly optimized game so don't expect much without dialing back settings.
Dragon Age Inquisition: A brand new game that has a couple of patches to go before we'll see full performance as new games aren't necessarily finished products anymore.

You're probably hitting a bit of a CPU holding you back in both games too.

Ultra at 30 FPS sounds about right depending on the area.
280x gets 43 FPS
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sapphire-vapor-x-r9-290x-8gb,3977-4.html
That's faster than your card and they are also using a faster GPU.

With DAI though, I think you're definitely having an issue hitting 0 FPS but again, it'd definitely help to see your settings page. I'd wait for driver updates/patches on the game though. Game Launches are now just paid beta tests.

 

[BMARX123]

Post your settings page for each game so we can see the exact settings you're using as well. That will help.

But in reality you posted:
Watch Dogs: A Horribly optimized game so don't expect much without dialing back settings.
Dragon Age Inquisition: A brand new game that has a couple of patches to go before we'll see full performance as new games aren't necessarily finished products anymore.

Both of the games are under the Ultra Preset, but with the settings for motion blur turned off.

 

[tential]

Both of the games are under the Ultra Preset, but with the settings for motion blur turned off.

I meant a screenshot, sometimes you miss things and don't even realize it.

 

[tidy]

.

 

[escrow4]

Your fantastic FX processor is bottlenecking you. OC the stuffing out of it to alleviate, assuming you have a half decent AM3+ mobo with decent VRMs to handle the load.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

You may be CPU bottlenecked.

Games generally demand a certain amount of CPU usage to calculate the AI, physics, game state and other factors in the engine, the next frame cannot be rendered until those things are calculated hence a slow CPU (relative to your GPU) can be the limit of your frame rate. In these cases the GPU will spend a certain amount of its time idle waiting for the CPU to finish calculating the next game state and that down time between frames gets read off in performance as <100% usage.

You can overclock your CPU or look at getting a faster one, most gamers these days tend to shoot for Intel i7's to avoid CPU bottlenecking in games.

In some cases game settings may alleviate stress on the CPU but it's rare, most of the settings change the load on the video card not the CPU, you might find game settings based around physics such as number of particles in effects or draw distance which effects the number of rendered AI on screen.

If you can't overclock or dont want to and you can't replace the CPU with a faster Intel one, then you can always look at increasing visual settings, while you're out of luck at getting FPS up you can always spend that idle 40% of your video card on extra graphics settings without lowering your FPS, find a balance of settings that uses more of your GPU once it gets close to 100% that's your sweet spot.

 

[cbrunny]

One more vote for cpu bottleneck. Same thing happened to me. Switched to a 4790k and bottleneck went away.

 

[lilrayray69]

CPU bottleneck. I concur.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Simply drop your resolution to 720p in each game,the ones that present the exact frame rate are pretty much bottlenecked and the ones that increase are simply gpu bound.

 

[Pseudoics]

The problem is with the games you've highlighted, not your hardware.

Watch Dogs in particular - consider it fundamentally broken at the engine level. It doesn't matter what CPU you have or even the settings you use in that game, it will not run consistently (esp on AMD cards). My rig has an 4770k @ 4.8Ghz/5.0Ghz -HT, OC'd R9 290 Tri-X in CF, and I get the same low GPU usage as you. Constantly fluctuating from 20% - 80% usage. (1080p) High settings; Ultra, No AA, 8xMSAA - doesn't matter! It stutters and has huge fps dips often 60 down to 30fps. It has improved with patches/drivers, but after 7 months it's still IMO unplayable without considerable config editing which for me is an unacceptable failure from Ubisoft.

I'm not suggesting you won't see improved performance with hardware upgrades - obviously - I'd just suggest you scratch Watch Dogs from your "need to upgrade for this" list, and you'll be much happier.

DA:I however is brand new and as others have said, these new AAA games are too often releasing in unfinished states and will need a few rounds of patches/drivers for peak performance.