[SOLVED] - Low GPU Usage in certain games (2025)

download, install and run DDU (in safe mode). reinstall current Nvidia driver. see if that works.

also if you can, run Userbenchmark and post results

norcalsc said:

download, install and run DDU (in safe mode). reinstall current Nvidia driver. see if that works.

also if you can, run Userbenchmark and post results

Click to expand...

I just ran DDU however I noticed the only way to get high usage is by raising settings to ultra to get the load onto my gpu, I guess I literally can't run Apex on low settings at 240 fps, I'm stuck on ultra settings at avg of 130

I'm guessing that Apex Legends has VSync enabled by default. This limits the game framerate to be the same as the framerate of your monitor. This is why you don't get full GPU utilisation. But if VSync is disabled then game try ro render as many frames as posible regardles if they can be shown on your monitor or not. This tghen leads to full GPU utilization even if the game graphical settings are not maxed out.

So check the graphical settings of each individual game to see whether VSync is enabled or not.

Dragos Manea said:

For apex to unlock fps at vsync option in-game menu you must select adaptive (not adaptive 1/2), if that does not boost the fps up then you're limited by your cpu, basically your cpu cannot push more fps so the gpu is idle.

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I will try that and get back to you

SilverWarior said:

I'm guessing that Apex Legends has VSync enabled by default. This limits the game framerate to be the same as the framerate of your monitor. This is why you don't get full GPU utilisation. But if VSync is disabled then game try ro render as many frames as posible regardles if they can be shown on your monitor or not. This tghen leads to full GPU utilization even if the game graphical settings are not maxed out.

So check the graphical settings of each individual game to see whether VSync is enabled or not.

Click to expand...

I do not have vsync on but yes the game's frame rate is limited to my monitor's refresh rate, I'll see if I can remove the cap and see if that puts stress on the gpu at low settings

Dragos Manea said:

For apex to unlock fps at vsync option in-game menu you must select adaptive (not adaptive 1/2), if that does not boost the fps up then you're limited by your cpu, basically your cpu cannot push more fps so the gpu is idle.

Click to expand...

I have selected vsync on adaptive and it does as a matter of fact unlock my frame rate at low settings and getting 165-300 fps in apex, which is great, but now I'm running into another problem, the game at 200 fps doesn't feel as smooth as the game on 130, infact it even feels choppy on 200 fps, I do own a 165hz monitor and this doesn't feel like 165hz

SilverWarior said:

Is the game perhaps running in Windowed mode? Windowed mode also limits framerate to monitors refresh rate.

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The game is in a fullscreen

SilverWarior said:

I'm guessing that Apex Legends has VSync enabled by default. This limits the game framerate to be the same as the framerate of your monitor. This is why you don't get full GPU utilisation. But if VSync is disabled then game try ro render as many frames as posible regardles if they can be shown on your monitor or not. This tghen leads to full GPU utilization even if the game graphical settings are not maxed out.

So check the graphical settings of each individual game to see whether VSync is enabled or not.

Click to expand...

I will uncap the framerate and lower all my settings and see if that works out and get back to you

SilverWarior said:

I'm guessing that Apex Legends has VSync enabled by default. This limits the game framerate to be the same as the framerate of your monitor. This is why you don't get full GPU utilisation. But if VSync is disabled then game try ro render as many frames as posible regardles if they can be shown on your monitor or not. This tghen leads to full GPU utilization even if the game graphical settings are not maxed out.

So check the graphical settings of each individual game to see whether VSync is enabled or not.

Click to expand...

I have uncapped my frames, on low settings I am getting almost max GPU usage, and leading to very good frames, however, my problem resides in the game feels like it's on 60HZ, Even tho other games feel smooth, I do own a 165hz monitor so I am supposed to be able to feel the difference.

Having high framerate does not necessarily mean a smooth game experience.
In one of your previous posts you have wrote that when lowering the graphical settings your framerate is somewhere in between 160 and 300 FPS. That could easily make you feel that the game is choppy at times. Now while FPS doesn't really gets very low the difference between minimum and maximum framerate is high that it is easily noticeable.

Also bare in mind that when uncapping game framerate doesn't only increase the load of the GPU but also load of the CPU. So this could actually lead to scenario where your CPU gets bottlenecked which could then affect game simulation and cause slowdowns. Now I don't own Ryzen CPU myself but after watching many reviews of it I learned that it doesn't have very impressive single core performance. So if game is doing most processing on primary thread that is also used for sending draw command to the GPU you can easily put so much load to a single core that it simply cant keep up.

So when choosing your graphics settings you should aim to have as stable FPS as possible (minimal deviation between minimum and maximum FPS). Also going any higher than the refresh-rate of your monitor is pointless. Granted if you had 60 Hz monitor having more than 60 FPS could be beneficial as in some games might help reducing the input lag. But since you have 165 Hz monitor going any higher than that most likely won't give you and less input lag due to limitation of the rest of your CPU hardware.