So, I have recently upgraded my GPU from the integrated one to GTX 1650. According to benchmarks, that GPU should be able to do 144hz. For the most part, I can get well above 144fps, usually about 165-240. However, in teamfights, my framerate goes down to an average of about 125, with occasional dips into the 110s, 100s, or even (very rarely) 90s. It’s fine for the most part (still a tremendous improvement over my previous setup), but I would prefer to have at least 144fps the whole time. Now, looking at task manager, my CPU usage is often 100%, with OW taking up 97% of that (while my GPU usage is lower). Lowering resolution and render scale does not help much. My CPU, an i5 4590, is nothing remarkable, but I didn’t think it would be that extreme of a bottleneck. According to hardware benchmarking software, all of my hardware is working at normal to above normal speeds. Do I need to upgrade the CPU to get a steady 144fps, or is there something else going on?
Im having the same problem with my card too
What CPU and GPU do you have? I’m wondering if it is just OW being more CPU intensive or if it is a bug.
Edit: The other weird thing is that in deathmatch, no matter how chaotic, fps usually never drops below 160, sometimes staying above 200 the whole game. I’m wondering if it’s my ram, it’s only 1600 Mhz.
I think Overwatch has intermittently hit issues with i5’s.
You can find posts going back to 2016 from i5 users.
Blizzard’s reccomended solution back then was the following:
I’m on an i5 6500 and my CPU also is running near 100% in Overwatch.
I’ve got 2133 hz memory.
I’m in a somewhat different boat video card wise as I’m using integrated.
I’ve kept it locked to 30 since it’s spikes annoyed me but, when I’ve got it unlocked it’ll bounce around from 68 down to 30ish.
Basically all of the rest of my games have the CPU at below 60% usage with the GPU running 70% +.
Overwatch has the CPU running at 100% with the “GPU” at 50-65%
This will even extend to the main menu when the game is doing nothing.
Interestingly enough, if I leave it sitting on the main menu for long enough or randomly mess with my settings sometimes it will occasionally leave my poor suffering cpu alone and the usage will drop down to sane numbers most other times it will suffer so much it loses my rendering device if I tab out for long enough.