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Seulrene's avatar
Seulrene
3 years ago
Solved

Odd performance bug with GPU clock speed that I found a workaround for

I'll start off by saying that I realize that this could be some weird bug specific to my system but I figured I'd post about it anyway in case it helps someone else. Also I don't have any of these issues with any other game I play, I even tested other games after discovering this weird workaround and they all perform normally as expected. I'm only having this issue with this game specifically.


When I started playing this game I was getting about 70-85 fps on max settings (DLSS, Vsync and film grain are turned off) at 1440p and I noticed that while my GPU usage was at 100%, the clock speed was about half of what it should be at around 1500 MHz, the TDP (power consumption) was only around 30% and the PerfCap Reason was stuck at Idle. Normally when I'm playing newer/more demanding games, the GPU clock is around it's max speed of 2800MHz, the TDP is higher and the PerfCap reason is VRel. So something seemed off to me with this game and I couldn't find anyone online with a similar issue and nothing seemed to fix it. That is until my I started watching my friend's stream on discord. While watching his stream, I was suddenly getting about 20-40 more fps, my GPU clock was boosting like it should to about 2800MHz, the TDP was higher, and the PerfCap reason was now VRel. I then had him stop streaming and my performance dropped back to where it was before. He started streaming again and it went back up. I also discovered that I can get the same effect by watching a 4k or 8k video on youtube. On the surface this makes no sense but it absolutely works for me. I also tried disabling Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling thinking maybe that was what was causing this but it made no difference. Other than this very odd bug, the game is running very well. No crashes, stutter, frame drops or anything like that.


I've attached some screenshots showing the difference in game.


TL:DR For some reason this game isn't properly utilizing my GPU and as crazy as it sounds, watching a stream on discord or a 4k/8k youtube video on another monitor fixes it.


For reference, my specs are:

7950X stock

32GB DDR5-6000

4080 FE stock / driver version: 528.24

1440p 165Hz GSync Monitor

the game is installed on a Gen 4 NVMe m.2 SSD

Windows 11 Pro 22H2 22621.1105

Bought the game through Steam

dead space
technical issues
  • Seulrene's avatar
    Seulrene
    3 years ago

    @EA_Illium @Menchin11 I believe I've found what's causing this issue: Vsync. Disabling Vsync both in game and/or in the Nvidia control panel completely fixes the issue and my GPU is fully utilized and everything works as it should, even without a video playing in the background.

    For reference, I usually have Vsync enabled in the Nvidia control panel and disabled in game for the optimal G-Sync settings (based on this well known Blur Busters article), but I can definitely say that this is the first time I've ever seen this issue. Also note: I tried the game with Vsync disabled and G-Sync enabled and disabled and it seems G-Sync has no effect in causing the issue, just Vsync.

4 Replies

  • Menchin11's avatar
    Menchin11
    3 years ago

    So I kept on experiencing 0% GPU utilization and consequently the DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_HUNG crash in the intro, even after the newest patch (at time of writing) on Steam.

    I found out that putting on a 10 hour fullscreen 4K or 1440p video in the background before lauching the game will make the game utilize my GPU and stop the GPU hang errors from popping up

    If I do not have one of these videos open in the background I cannot have the game running for longer than ~1:30 minutes before a crash

    --

    Specs:

    GPU: RTX 2080Ti

    CPU: i7 9700K

    RAM: 2x8GB 3200MHz

    Game installed on: Samsung 970 Evo 2TB SSD

  • EA_Illium's avatar
    EA_Illium
    Icon for EA Staff (Retired) rankEA Staff (Retired)
    3 years ago

    Hey @Menchin11 @Seulrene can we try the following steps and check if this continues?

    • Make sure the game is installed on an internal SSD (versus HDD or external SSD connected via USB)
    • Run the System File Checker tool then Check for Windows and GPU updates  
    • EA App's Cache (Top Left Menu > Help > App Recovery) 
    • Repair Games (Go to My Collection > Select the tile Dots > Repair)
    • Check for other applications that may be limiting EA App or Game performance
    • Rolling back your GPU drivers to a previous version then test
    • Put your device in a Clean Boot then launch the game

    Thanks!

  • Seulrene's avatar
    Seulrene
    3 years ago

    Hey @EA_Illium thanks for replying. I tried all of these and tested the game between each one to verify if a specific thing fixed the issue. Here's the results:

    • Yes as I said in my original post, the game is installed on an Gen 4 NVMe m.2 SSD - a SK Hynix P41 2TB
    • I ran the system file checker tool and it didn't find any corrupted files - tested the game, didn't fix the issue / i checked for windows updates, there was one that updated me to 22H2 22621.1194 - tested the game, didn't fix the issue
    • As I said in the OP i have the game on Steam not the EA App, but either way I verified the integrity of the game files and all files validated successfully - tested the game anyway, didn't fix the issue
    • I restarted in a clean boot and disabled all startup programs - tested the game, didn't fix the issue
    • I completely uninstalled my GPU driver with Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) and installed an older driver from December 1st, 2022 (ver. 527.37) - tested the game, didn't fix the issue (after this I used DDU to remove that driver, then I re installed the latest one (528.24))

    So unfortunately none of those worked. Some other things I also tried that didn't work are: disabling Hardware Accelerated GPU scheduling, running the game on a different monitor (4k 60Hz), enabling Resizable BAR with Nvidia Profile Inspector (this actually gave me quite a performance boost, but it didn't solve the issue).

    I'm going to keep trying different things and if I find something that works I'll reply here.

  • Seulrene's avatar
    Seulrene
    3 years ago

    @EA_Illium @Menchin11 I believe I've found what's causing this issue: Vsync. Disabling Vsync both in game and/or in the Nvidia control panel completely fixes the issue and my GPU is fully utilized and everything works as it should, even without a video playing in the background.

    For reference, I usually have Vsync enabled in the Nvidia control panel and disabled in game for the optimal G-Sync settings (based on this well known Blur Busters article), but I can definitely say that this is the first time I've ever seen this issue. Also note: I tried the game with Vsync disabled and G-Sync enabled and disabled and it seems G-Sync has no effect in causing the issue, just Vsync.

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