Low GPU and CPU usage?

Technical Support
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GPU Usage 79%, CPU 37%, RAM 16GB Used, VRAM 8.5 GB Used, FPS 114.

I’m having an issue with D4 and seems to be only D4.

My FPS seemed a little low to me so I booted up Afterburner OSD and saw these numbers. Figured something might be wrong with my setup so I loaded up RDR2 to check and that was fine at 99% gpu usage. Same with Cyberpunk and Helldivers 2. All games running at 1440p with max settings and no DLSS enabled. I have Diablo 4 max and min framerate in settings all the way up to 400fps and vsync in game is off.

EVGA RTX 3080 Ftw3 Ultra i7 13700k (no overclock) 32 GB DDR5 RAM

Any ideas? Already tried DDU. Running latest drivers

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I’m running a 4080 super, with 32 GB memory and a 12900 k.

At maximum settings in D4, with the frame rate set to match my monitor which is 165
Hz running 1440p, the game can bounce between 105 to 140.

I have instead capped the FPS at 100 frames per second, and that at least stabilizes the the video. As for it not using all of your GPU, I don’t have an answer. I will say that it is using what it needs to use, and having DLSS enabled and other features does help the frame rate. But keep in mind this game really doesn’t need frame rates above 100 frames per second. It just doesn’t. This is not a FPS that needs to have higher frame rates to try and force a lower latency. Most of that is kind of myth anyway.

My in-game latency is actually lower when I set a cap of 100 FPS than it is if I let it bounce off the limit. When it bounces off the limit it’ll spike the in-game latency to plus 20 milliseconds. Ordinarily though I will see 8 to 10 milliseconds for in-game latency. And yes I’m referring to responsiveness not internet latency.

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Was this measured in a big town hub?
Then you will be CPU-limited most of the time.

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Is your FPS staying at 114 or is that just what it sits at in a certain area? Does your FPS go up, along with GPU usage in other areas, especially outside of towns, like dungeon for example? What if you turn crossplay off, to have less players in towns?

Also, are you using Nvidia Reflex with g-sync? What’s the refreshrate of your monitor? If I remember correctly, reflex will cap your FPS a little below your monitors refreshrate, to avoid v-sync latency behaviour.

I have the exact same CPU and while the game stutters in a lot of areas for me, I do get full GPU usage if I’m not hitting my FPS cap (166fps with g-sync), with all settings maxed (no RT) and DLAA, with a 4090 @ 3440x1440, which is mostly just towns with crossplay enabled, where I might not maintain 166fps.

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That’s just what it is in that specific area. My FPS fluctuates but typically my GPU usage won’t go above 80%, sometimes it jumps to 90 but quickly drops again. My CPU usage never seems to go above 50%.

I have tried all combinations of Nvidia Reflex on, off, and on+boost. Refresh rate is 240hz

I have a screenshot of the usages but unfortunately i can’t post links or pictures here as far as I can tell. I can however tell you what each object on the OSD is saying in that moment.

GPU1 : 79% Usage 69 degrees
CPU1: 37%
CPU : 57 degrees, 18%, 5327 Mhz
CPU 3 : 40%
CPU 5 : 31%
CPU 7 : 32%
CPU 2,4,8 are all at 0%

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Hmm not really sure then. Do you have HT disabled or does afterburner’s OSD not measure those HT cores? I use hwinfo for CPU measuring and always have 16 “cores” (8+8) listed.

Only other thing I can currently think of is there a power limit or anything set for your GPU in afterburner or other software? Wouldn’t really make sense though as other games reach 99% usage…

If you do end up finding the solution, please let us know.

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If your GPU load drops, you are either CPU limited or FPS capped, not much more to it.

The game does not use all your cores, so 50% load in this case is normal, but still CPU bottlenecked (because of IPC).

Compare that to WoW, where the engine is basically singlethreaded and you will be CPU limited most of the time even though modern 8+ core CPUs are at like 10-20% load.

You can also lower resolution and see what happens.
If the FPS stay the same, it’s a CPU or RAM bottleneck.

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FPS doesn’t stay the same, when I turn DLSS on it jumps up. I’ve seen it hit over 200 if resolution is low enough. I’ve also seen the GPU usage jump to 99% but it usually only does it for a second and the FPS doesn’t change much when it does.

Hyperthreading is enabled. I have the power limit set at 100% in Afterburner, no limits set or sleep modes or anything like that enabled in windows.

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So to be 100% clear, when your GPU is way below 100% load and you turn on DLSS, your GPU load increases?

Let’s say in this example.
Also plz note what your settings for Vsync and FPS caps are. Is it uncapped? G-Sync, Reflex on? FPS Limit set?

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I have the exact same CPU as OP though and with a 4090 I can reach 99% usage if needed (most of the time I sit around 75% - 80% because I’m at my my 166 FPS cap but in town with vendor windows open I will go to 99%), so that doesn’t really make sense no?

OP, what RAM do you have? XMP enabled/disabled?

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The point im trying to make here is that it is normal to be CPU limited in some places like towns :smiley:

IF he has low GPU usage without any FPS cap in say a dungeon, than there is something wrong.

So i’m still trying to find out if he has a FPS cap and is also measuring in different scenarios.

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I do not have an FPS cap that it’s even close to reaching. My cap in Nvidia CP is 237 because my refresh rate is 240. My fps caps in game are both set to 400. I do have vsync enabled in Nvidia CP but not in-game. I have G-Sync enabled. I have tried with Reflex off, on, and on+boost. Not really any difference in usages that I can see.

I meant when I turn DLSS on my FPS goes up.

my RAM is 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5 Corsair Vengeance 5600

Is there a way to link imgr stuff or something on this forum? I’d like to post some example screenshots to show better what I’m talking about.

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I’m not sure if you can post imgur links on this sub-forum. I think I tried recently and it kept saying I wasn’t allowed lol…

Out of curiosity, when you turn DLSS on (DLSS quality?), does your GPU usage stay the same? Does it go down? It makes sense your FPS goes up as lower internal render resolution and all that but I’m curious if your GPU usage changes.

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As it should. But for your FPS to go up with DLSS you first need to be GPU limited not CPU limited (like in a town).

Yes.
Just use </> from the forum functions here on the URL.

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Disable this at the driver panel and in game.

I no longer use G-Sync. It seemed to cause more issues than it would help.

In the nVidia panel, don’t set a cap, set this to the default option. Make sure any game profile that may have been created for Diablo IV is either removed or set this way.

In game, set the cap to 100 FPS foreground, 60FPS background. We will start with this setting and see how smooth it plays. You can always increase this amount, but you want to set it below where its fluctuating.

As expected. This is because of DLSS. I run DLSS with DLAA enabled. (max quality)

I run a similar speed (Kingston Fury 5600 DDR5)

Set a static swap file. Set the custom size of the swap file to 16GB (16384) for both minimum and maximum.

I think with a few adjustments your game’s play performance will improve.

These settings will not hurt other games, and some of them will improve your system performance.

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I really appreciate all of you guys trying to help!
I’d just like to let you guys know that the problem has been solved. It seemed to be a BIOS setting for my CPU that I had to change. I had EIST disabled and after enabling it everything seems to be working much better.

GPU Usage is 99% and frametimes are much more steady.

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