Can no longer hold 240 FPS since recent updates; GPU and CPU both underutilized
Summary
Before Season 30, I could run Apex at 240 FPS with no issues on this PC. Since then I can't. In matches I average about 179 FPS, and both the CPU and GPU are well below their limits, which suggests a game-side bottleneck.
System
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5700X
- GPU: ASRock AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB
- RAM: 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4-3200, dual channel
- Motherboard: ASRock B550M-HDV
- OS: Windows 11 Home 64-bit
- Game: Apex Legends on Steam, running as r5apex_dx12.exe (DX12)
- Display target: 240 Hz / 240 FPS
What I measured (about 9 minutes of match play, logged with the AMD Adrenalin metrics logger and Windows Performance Monitor)
- FPS in matches: average ~179, median ~174, 5th percentile ~135, 1st percentile ~117. Only about 14% of samples were at 220+ FPS.
- GPU utilization: about 68% average in matches, rarely above 95%. Board power was only ~50W.
- CPU utilization: about 42% total (Performance Monitor) and about 61% total (Adrenalin logger) during matches. Per-logical-processor load showed no processor staying near 100%; the highest 1-second reading was ~89%.
- Temperatures were normal (CPU ~70C, GPU ~57C, hotspot ~64C). No thermal or power throttling that I can see.
- RAM use was about 14% and VRAM use about 4 GB, so neither is a limit.
- Sharp drops to roughly 14-46 FPS occurred around match start and end and during transitions, not constantly during play.
What I have already checked
- RAM running at its rated 3200 MT/s in dual channel
- AMD chipset driver up to date
- Windows Performance power plan, Game Mode on, hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling on
- Antivirus trial uninstalled
- [Add anything else you have tried, e.g. shader cache reset, verifying game files, clean GPU driver install, launch options]
Why I'm reporting this
With GPU and CPU both well under their limits and no thermal issues, the frame rate appears limited by the game itself rather than my hardware or settings. Other players have reported similar drops in FPS with low GPU usage after recent updates. Please look at CPU-side performance and frame pacing in the current build.
I can share the full Adrenalin and Performance Monitor CSV logs if useful.
Thank you.
