GPU utilization at 100% when game is minimized

Conan Exiles PC Discussion PC Bug Reports
,
1

Platform: Steam
Issue Type: Graphics
Game Mode: Single Player
Server Type: PvE
Map: Exiled Lands
Server Name: None
Mods: None

Start the game in full screen mode, enter the world and open the character’s inventory. Then, minimize the game and the GPU utilization will immediately spike to 100% and stay there until the game window is restored, then things return to normal. I see this whenever I mouse over to a second monitor and open something that minimizes the game window.

The graphics settings don’t seem to matter, whether it’s medium, high, ultra, etc. The behavior is the same.

1 Like
2

Its actually not unusual for a graphics card to run at 100%. Its just giving you as many frames as it can. You dont want an idle gpu; it means its not doing what its paid for. Do you have the game fps capped and when you drop to windows it is just going back to “use all the things” mode?

1 Like
3

Any strange behavior in other games?

4

Have you tried setting “windowed fullscreen” instead of “fullscreen”?

5

I don’t have FPS capped, but when the game is minimized it has nothing to actually draw; normally, it’s not pegged at 100% all the time.

I only noticed the first time because I had opened Windows settings, the game minimized and after about 10 seconds the fans on the GPU started spinning up and I wondered what was going on. Then I started testing, and regardless of what else was going on, minimized game meant the GPU always going full tilt. Kind of weird.

6

This is the only one I’ve seen this happen with. Has the latest Nvidia drivers, Windows 10 updates, etc.

I realize this one of those situations that’s “it’s not actually causing a problem” but I thought it was odd enough to let them know. You’d think GPU utilization would go down if there’s nothing for the game to actually draw.

7

I haven’t, just because I tend to see a frame rate drop in fullscreen windowed. I’ll give it a shot out of curiosity.

8

So I tested out whether running in windowed mode made a difference and it doesn’t. GPU utilization is normal until the game window is minimized, then the GPU is immediately pegged at 100% until the window is restored to normal.

Another weirdness that I noticed is the GPU runs at about 10℃ hotter in windowed mode than fullscreen (with the same GPU utilization), but a quick search shows this isn’t a particularly unusual thing with games. The “working harder when there’s nothing to draw” thing, that I find to be strange.

9

This topic was automatically closed 14 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.