Higher Than Usual CPU Usage

I'm at a bit of a loss at the moment. I know that Gw2 is a pretty CPU intensive game, but it's using like 80-90% of my CPU regardless of graphics settings when I used to get 50-60% (still pretty high but acceptable enough for me). My GPU is doing fine, hovering around 50% so that's not the issue.

I'd really appreciate if anyone has some advice or insight on what I can do to lower this, because it's often becoming unplayable.I also spend most of my time in WvW, not sure if that's relevant or not but thought I'd mention it.

CPU: Intel Core i5 6600K (OC'd to 4ghz)GPU: MSI Geforce GTX 1060 Gaming X 3GB

@Jax.4572, I'm extremely confused here. You seem to be complaining that less of your CPU capacity is being wasted, which seems very odd...

Is there an actual problem here?

@SlippyCheeze.5483If I'm running something like discord that pushes my usage over 100 % and then I start experiencing freezes, my mouse starts lagging and I literally cannot play...

@Jax.4572 said:@"SlippyCheeze.5483"If I'm running something like discord that pushes my usage over 100 % and then I start experiencing freezes, my mouse starts lagging and I literally cannot play...

I'm still a bit confused: you say it pushes your usage OVER 100%; are you meaning that it caps at 100 percent and stays there while these symptoms happen, or that they occur while a percentage such as 101 or 110 percent is shown?

For the record, it should be perfectly possible to cap CPU use at 100 percent (overall) full time, without those problems popping up. It'll certainly limit your frame rate and stuff, but that should be about all that happens.

Either way, those symptoms are pretty bad. Are you swapping during this time? How much swap is in use?

The next place to start checking is that your CPU and GPU are running normally.

@SlippyCheeze.5483 When I open up resource monitor it shows I'm using in the region of 105-110%. Everything is fine at 100% or below.

Do you know how I would go about doing that? I tried looking into it but I could only find ways to limit specific programs. I can stand to lose some fps if it'll fix the problem.

By swapping, do you mean the paging file?I have 16gb of RAM, would I even be needing it? How can I monitor when I'm swapping?

I ran a few benchmarks and both the CPU and GPU are running perfectly fine as far as I can tell.

(Sorry my PC knowledge is not exceptional, I may ask seemingly stupid questions ^^; )

@"Jax.4572" The key points on CPU/GPU that can impact things in this kind of way is their operating temperature. All CPUs and GPUs on the market today include "thermal management" features designed to stop them overheating. If they decide they are getting too hot, they slow down(1), which makes them produce less heat. Eventually they will find a "balance", but the effect for you will be one or more of the following:

• Higher percentage utilisation of the CPU/GPU (the same number of cycles used, but because the equipment has slowed itself down, the percent utilisation will be higher because there are fewer cycles available).
• If the situation is bad enough, occasional crashes, freezes, weird graphical effects, and so on.

Why, though, can they become hotter than before while doing the same thing that you did before?

• Ambient temperature. If the room is hotter than before, the cooling system (fans, heatsinks, that stuff) will become less effective because it depends on the temperature difference, so the effective temperature of the CPU and/or GPU will be higher.
• Cooling effectiveness. If the heatsinks and fans are dirty, they aren't as good at cooling (the dirt "insulates" the surface of the heatsinks, directly preventing them from getting rid of heat, and it also reduces the amount of air that the fans can move around), so the components run hotter than before.

For the second, shut down the machine, open the case, and clean all the crud off of any heatsink and/or fan you can find. You should also clean any mesh grids over the intake fans.

(1) Yes, they will defy your wish for the CPU to run faster than it is rated for, but they do it to protect themselves from thermal damage.

@Steve The Cynic.3217 Thanks for the super detailed response I'll definitely keep all that in mind, but I'm not sure that I should be experiencing this from overheating where even under load I rarely go over 50 degrees on both CPU and GPU? That's not hot, right? :'D

@Jax.4572 said:@Steve The Cynic.3217 Thanks for the super detailed response I'll definitely keep all that in mind, but I'm not sure that I should be experiencing this from overheating where even under load I rarely go over 50 degrees on both CPU and GPU? That's not hot, right? :'D

It is not, though it is not impossible that the location of the thermometer measuring that, and the temperature in the hardware itself, are different.

It's a pretty solid sign this isn't heat related though.

Have you tried lessening certain graphic setting in game such as : Character Model Limit, Shadows, and Field of View?My CPU usage can also have a very high usage while gaming but I don't consider that an issue right off the bat either. For the record it's an i5 8400 and I agree with the notion that even if it suggests 100% you shouldn't have to necessarily suffer through stutter or worse.

@"Maze.3825" said:Have you tried lessening certain graphic setting in game such as : Character Model Limit, Shadows, and Field of View?My CPU usage can also have a very high usage while gaming but I don't consider that an issue right off the bat either. For the record it's an i5 8400 and I agree with the notion that even if it suggests 100% you shouldn't have to necessarily suffer through stutter or worse.

Yeah, at least one core is almost always going to hit close to 100 percent (and usually ~ 4 cores will), but there shouldn't be significant stuttering, etc, just a drop in frame rate. There absolutely should not be "mouse lag" happening in that situation.

@Maze.3825 I have my character limit on lowest, and medium shadows. I do play with max field of view, but I pretty much have to because if I don't I get really bad motion sickness. Even still, with my graphic setting on the lowest preset there's very little difference, if any at all :/

What I've done for the moment is given it a low priority and only letting it use 3 cores. I'll see how it goes at prime time. I'm hopeful, I'm not reaching 100% even with discord and chrome open at the moment. Fingers crossed lol

@Jax.4572 said:@Steve The Cynic.3217 Thanks for the super detailed response I'll definitely keep all that in mind, but I'm not sure that I should be experiencing this from overheating where even under load I rarely go over 50 degrees on both CPU and GPU? That's not hot, right? :'D

As @SlippyCheeze.5483 said, it's not hot. Intel CPUs (according to their datasheets, anyway) impose a temperature limit of 100°C. That is, the heat-induced slow-down doesn't kick in until then, so the CPU is definitely not slowed down at only 50°.

@"SlippyCheeze.5483" said:Yeah, at least one core is almost always going to hit close to 100 percent (and usually ~ 4 cores will), but there shouldn't be significant stuttering, etc, just a drop in frame rate. There absolutely should not be "mouse lag" happening in that situation.

all 4 cores hitting 100% doesn't sound correct, that's not how multi-threading works for 99.9% of software on the market, unless you are running programs where calculations are independent of each other.

The typical multi-threaded software requires a core to act as the 'commander' to distribute the instructions, which is usually highest running frequency core, CPU 0. (also the one get auto turbo)

you sure you don't have anything else running in the background chewing up the CPU?

if nothing else works, do a fresh install of Windows to ensure not trojan or virus or software affecting it

@crepuscular.9047 said:

@"SlippyCheeze.5483" said:Yeah, at least one core is almost always going to hit close to 100 percent (and usually ~ 4 cores will), but there shouldn't be significant stuttering, etc, just a drop in frame rate. There absolutely should not be "mouse lag" happening in that situation.

The other three busy cores usually run in the 70 to 90 percent range when GW2 is capping out the main thread, because it is busy. Does that satisfy your pedantry?

The typical multi-threaded software requires a core to act as the 'commander' to distribute the instructions, which is usually highest running frequency core, CPU 0. (also the one get auto turbo)

That is no longer an accurate technical description of the implementation of "turbo" stuff across any of the current CPUs.

Disable all overlays and anything else that hooks into the game. It may not GW2's fault, but rather something else that isn't playing nicely. Discord for example was causing problems a little while back, causing the game to freeze on loading screens. You can try disabling all non-essential services and startup programs using msconfig, and delete the bin folders in your GW2 folder.

Local.dat, which is your hardware-related settings, can bloat over time, causing odd problems; generally increased load times and reduced FPS. Try deleting the folder %appdata%/Guild Wars 2/, and if it exists, Documents/Guild Wars 2/Local.dat.

@crepuscular.9047 said:you sure you don't have anything else running in the background chewing up the CPU?

Pretty sure, yeah. As far as I can see I only have ~10-15% with chrome and discord + small stuff

@Healix.5819 said:Disable all overlays and anything else that hooks into the game. It may not GW2's fault, but rather something else that isn't playing nicely. Discord for example was causing problems a little while back, causing the game to freeze on loading screens. You can try disabling all non-essential services and startup programs using msconfig, and delete the bin folders in your GW2 folder.

Local.dat, which is your hardware-related settings, can bloat over time, causing odd problems; generally increased load times and reduced FPS. Try deleting the folder %appdata%/Guild Wars 2/, and if it exists, Documents/Guild Wars 2/Local.dat.

I'll definitely check that out, I didn't even consider that the discord overlay could potentially cause problems. Thanks for all the suggestions, I'll go through them tomorrow and see how that fares

Run a few 'common' benchmarks too: gain awareness that your equipment is in the right ballpark.

@"Maze.3825" said:Run a few 'common' benchmarks too: gain awareness that your equipment is in the right ballpark.

I just did this ~ http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/8947884I'm relatively sure my hardware is running as it should be :'D

@Jax.4572 go into your NVIDIA control panel and in the "Desktop" menu tick "Display GPU activity Icon in the notification area" then click on the icon in the notifcation area to see a list of apps currently using your GPU. Try disabling hardware acceleration on any/all of the apps listed that you can. A few examples include google chrome (when set to "run in the background"), Discord, Spotify etc.

It may be somewhat related to recent issues popping up with the latest Windows 10 update. I posted a few other things that may be worth a try in the other thread:

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/535110/#Comment_535110

@Dravis.7681 said:@Jax.4572 go into your NVIDIA control panel and in the "Desktop" menu tick "Display GPU activity Icon in the notification area" then click on the icon in the notifcation area to see a list of apps currently using your GPU. Try disabling hardware acceleration on any/all of the apps listed that you can. A few examples include google chrome (when set to "run in the background"), Discord, Spotify etc.

It may be somewhat related to recent issues popping up with the latest Windows 10 update. I posted a few other things that may be worth a try in the other thread:

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/535110/#Comment_535110

Thanks for the suggestions, I went through everything and disabled where I had the option to, and tried all the other suggestions in that thread but unfortunately nothing seems to have worked :(

My "fixes" I thought were helping have apparently stopped and I'm kinda back to square one. This is so frustrating and I really don't know what else I could do. I have guildies with lower end setups than mine that aren't having issues, and I don't have these issues in any other game I play :'(

One thing i might mention would be to be weary of using chrome with gw2, as chrome's resource draw can vary allot, you system's resources are pretty good, i run an i7 8700 and a gtx 1080, but i can run at 60-144 fps on ultra settings, even in frozen maw, perhaps you are maxing out your system memory? or maybe your hard drive is aging, and is maybe close to capped out? I've noticed performance issues with that.Another thing to take a look at is how long you keep your machine active, the longer stuff stays in memory the more junk gets loaded on disc, i used to run my old machine for 2-4 months on end and boy did it get back latency issues.Suggestion: clean hard drives help, let your computer rest, sleep doesn't help clean memory out. there are hardware checking programs you can get, i would recommend at minimum using ccleaner, free version works fine.

I have a feeling your problem is caused by running the 32-bit version of the game client. Arenanet has just recently launched the 64-bit client to prevent memory issues related to the release of the latest expansion.So if you havent already, you should try the 64 bit client.

I’d also like to add that Path of Fire is extremely RAM hungry. In Wndows 10 with only GW2 running, memory usage on my PC is at around 80-90%. I have 8 gigs of ram on my PC.

When running the 32 bit version of the client, the game cannot allocate more than 2 or 3 gigs of ram, so no matter how much ram you have in your PC the game will run into trouble if it needs more than 3 GB of RAM, and according to my tests the game easily eats up more RAM than that.

I´ve done some more testing of system memory usage when playing GW2.Here are my findings:

Base memory usage (Windows 10 with no programs open): 2,6GB

GW2 64-bit game client: 2,7 GB

Character select screen: 3,7 GB

Divinity´s Reach, Upper City center: 5,9 GB

Dwayna Highroad, at Ministers Waypoint (population appr. 20 players): 6,5 GB

This means at peak memory usage, the game uses at least (6,5 - 2,6) = 3,9 GB of RAM.It´s safe to say that using the 32-bit client will quickly result in RAM allocation problems.

Also, it seems you would be best off with at least 12 or 16 GB of RAM installed on your PC when playing GW2.In my case I only have 8GB of ram installed, so I plan on upgrading soon.

How exactly the game allocates RAM in 64-bit mode is unknown, but I´ve done some research and if you run a 32-bit application in Windows 64-bit the max user address space is 4GB.If you run a 32-bit application in Windows 10 32-bit environment the max user address space is 2GB.If you run a "IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE" application on 32-bit Windows you can access up to 3 GB.If you run a native 64-bit application on Windows 64-bit the max user address space is 8 TB (with another 8 TB set aside for kernel address space).

@"fabelmik.3052" said:I´ve done some more testing of system memory usage when playing GW2.Here are my findings:

How are you measuring this? Are you including disk cache, or is this strictly the GW2 client size?

I ask, because you (a) give a base level without the app, and (b) those numbers are larger than my own measurements in an otherwise identical environment.

This means at peak memory usage, the game uses at least (6,5 - 2,6) = 3,9 GB of RAM.It´s safe to say that using the 32-bit client will quickly result in RAM allocation problems.

This does come closer to my own measurements. The 32-bit version has definitely a problem with running out of memory, but that isn't the only problem: even if memory use was lower, fragmentation of the address space means that it can't get memory it needs, even if there is still some free, because "in use" bits get in the way. It's not an issue because the address space for 64-bit is vastly larger.

Also, it seems you would be best off with at least 12 or 16 GB of RAM installed on your PC when playing GW2.In my case I only have 8GB of ram installed, so I plan on upgrading soon.

This is definitely the best investment for performance most people can make. Additional RAM means not only that you have less overall pressure on memory if you leave, eg, a web browser running, but also more of the GW2 assets cached in memory by the OS, where they are several orders of magnitude faster to load than if it has to go out to the disk.

How exactly the game allocates RAM in 64-bit mode is unknown, but I´ve done some research and if you run a 32-bit application in Windows 64-bit the max user address space is 4GB.If you run a 32-bit application in Windows 10 32-bit environment the max user address space is 2GB.If you run a "IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE" application on 32-bit Windows you can access up to 3 GB.

GW2 can only address 2GB, further increasing the pressure from base memory, and fragmentation. I suspect CoherentUI of being unavailable with the Large Address Aware feature, and since you need everything you run built that way, ouchy. Either way, though, if you can, you should run the 64-bit client.

If you can't, then you should try and get to somewhere you can, because it isn't just GW2 that is going to be more trouble than it is worth in 32-bit mode as we move forward. The world have moved to 64-bit.