RTX 3070 Usage Under 1% When Gaming

[PeacefulTech]

Hi all,

I just got a RTX 3070. However, when I play Cyberpunk 2077 with mostly max setting, I observe from Windows Task Manager that GPU is under 1% most of the time.

The graphics generated is not as good as a expected. It was fuzzy and strange looking (I was getting reasonably smooth frame rate, however). My previous GPU was Radeon 5600 XT, and that card was rendering Cyberpunk better than the RTX 3070 I have.

I think the issue may lay in the fact that my GPU is being underutlized (under 1%) when gaming. I have already downloaded the best driver but it didn't make a difference. Could you guys give me some pointers in how to solve this issue?

Thanks a lot guys.

Cheers

 

[Hachi_Roku256563]

Hi all,

I just got a RTX 3070. However, when I play Cyberpunk 2077 with mostly max setting, I observe from Windows Task Manager that GPU is under 1% most of the time.

The graphics generated is not as good as a expected. It was fuzzy and strange looking (I was getting reasonably smooth frame rate, however). My previous GPU was Radeon 5600 XT, and that card was rendering Cyberpunk better than the RTX 3070 I have.

I think the issue may lay in the fact that my GPU is being underutlized (under 1%) when gaming. I have already downloaded the best driver but it didn't make a difference. Could you guys give me some pointers in how to solve this issue?

Thanks a lot guys.

Cheers

is it actually running at 1% in games try getting a overlay software Nvideas or msi are good?

 

[Night]

I'd start with uninstalling the drivers completely using DDU in safe mode and re-installing Nvidia drivers, unless you already did that. Maybe there's something left from AMD drivers.
Also did you buy it new or used?

 

[Hachi_Roku256563]

To me it sounds like he is running games fine alt tabbing to check the usage and the game is stopping using
thats why i recommended the overlay

 

[Night]

To me it sounds like he is running games fine alt tabbing to check the usage and the game is stopping using
thats why i recommended the overlay

Not sure how Ampere works in this situation, but I still get GPU usage when I alt+tab with a RX480. But yes, overlay is a good idea.

 

[PeacefulTech]

To me it sounds like he is running games fine alt tabbing to check the usage and the game is stopping using
thats why i recommended the overlay

I have two screens, so I'm running Cyberpunk in my main display while opening Task Manager on the other. From there I observe the GPU usage being under 1% most of the time, no matter what I do in the game.

It is my first time hearing about overlay software so I'm not sure what it does. I will do some research and download one. I will update here about the results.

I'd start with uninstalling the drivers completely using DDU in safe mode and re-installing Nvidia drivers, unless you already did that. Maybe there's something left from AMD drivers.
Also did you buy it new or used?

I bought the card new. I read about uninstalling the drivers and reinstalling it again in my research so far. In your experience, is this an effective strategy? It sounds kind of like a big, risky operation, so I would like to try to be cautious

It is possible that there is something left from the old AMD drivers; I didn't get out of my way to uninstall them anyways. Is this something known to cause issues?

 

[Night]

I bought the card new. I read about uninstalling the drivers and reinstalling it again in my research so far. In your experience, is this an effective strategy? It sounds kind of like a big, risky operation, so I would like to try to be cautious

It is possible that there is something left from the old AMD drivers; I didn't get out of my way to uninstall them anyways. Is this something known to cause issues?

It's not risky at all, you're not messing with GPU firmware here. AMD driver uninstaller leaves registry entries and other things that will most likely affect Nvidia drivers. So this is what I would do, get DDU from guru3d (trusted source), boot Windows in safe mode, run DDU, select Clean and Restart. Run DDU again, see if there are any more drivers present, if there are repeat the process for said drivers. After rebooting, download the latest Nvidia drivers.

 

[Hachi_Roku256563]

It's not risky at all, you're not messing with GPU firmware here. AMD driver uninstaller leaves registry entries and other things that will most likely affect Nvidia drivers. So this is what I would do, get DDU from guru3d (trusted source), boot Windows in safe mode, run DDU, select Clean and Restart. Run DDU again, see if there are any more drivers present, if there are repeat the process for said drivers. After rebooting, download the latest Nvidia drivers.

i i forgot to this
whoops my systems been fine i think lol

 

[looniam]

as mentioned; drivers, drivers, drivers. esp cyberpunk that is tuned different for vendors - in the graphics settings. (benchmarking, i'd re-install the whole OS)

 

[metalfiber]

Did buy the 3070 from a legit store?

Check the specs and everything with TPU's GPU-z....

TechPowerUp

GPU-Z is a lightweight system utility designed to provide vital information about your video card and graphics processor.

www.techpowerup.com

 

[Caring1]

Silly question, but is the cable from the monitor in the Motherboard or GPU?

 

[PeacefulTech]

Silly question, but is the cable from the monitor in the Motherboard or GPU?

The monitors are plugged into the GPU I/O. I don't think my monitors work if I plug them into the motherboard graphics I/O

Did buy the 3070 from a legit store?

Check the specs and everything with TPU's GPU-z....

TechPowerUp

GPU-Z is a lightweight system utility designed to provide vital information about your video card and graphics processor.

www.techpowerup.com

Ya I bought the card from Canada Computers (kind of like Memory Express, but only in Canada). I put in a backorder 4 months ago and finally got it now lol

as mentioned; drivers, drivers, drivers. esp cyberpunk that is tuned different for vendors - in the graphics settings. (benchmarking, i'd re-install the whole OS)

I ran a quick Time Spy benchmark from 3D mark. My graphics score is 13730. The graphics score for RTX 3070 on 3DMark's website is 13752. So I am assuming that my graphics card isn't necessarily a defect since it is not that much lower than the posted score?

By the way, when I ran the 3dMark benchmark, my GPU usage from Task Manager was also under 1% most of the time...

 

[PeacefulTech]

It's not risky at all, you're not messing with GPU firmware here. AMD driver uninstaller leaves registry entries and other things that will most likely affect Nvidia drivers. So this is what I would do, get DDU from guru3d (trusted source), boot Windows in safe mode, run DDU, select Clean and Restart. Run DDU again, see if there are any more drivers present, if there are repeat the process for said drivers. After rebooting, download the latest Nvidia drivers.

Hi, I just ran DDU and reinstalled the driver. I don't see much improvement in my Cyberpunk gameplay. The generated graphics still had the same kind of fuzziness as prior to me reinstalling the drivers. The Task Manager GPU performance also only show 0 to 1 percent during most (if not all) of my game play. It did jump to around to 50% ish when I first loaded the game, although it went back to 0 - 1 % during actual game play.

Maybe I didn't use DDU properly. Here are the three areas of what I did that I found most suspicious:

1. I could never get to a state where DDU detect no graphics driver at all. After my first "clean and restart" attempt, the GPU detected became "Microsoft Basic Display Adapter". This driver never went away no matter how many time I "clean and restart"

2. I don't recall DDU detecting any AMD drivers in the log. Since I am using Nvidea GPU, "Nvidea" is selected by default. I have tried manually change the setting to "AMD" and then "clean and restart" again in that state. I don't recall DDU detecting any AMD drivers in that state though, however.

3. After I finished with DDU, I tried to download the latest Nvidea driver. However, my PC automatically installed "Nvidea Control Panel" first. I then proceeded to install "GeForce Experience", then downloaded the latest Nvidea driver from that application.

Do you think I did anything incorrectly with DDU?

Thanks a lot

 

[rtwjunkie]

"Nvidea Control Panel" first. I then proceeded to install "GeForce Experience", then downloaded the latest Nvidea driver from that application.

Hmmmm, it's been a long while since I installed Nvidia's driver's in that manner. Can you just download the full driver (use the one in the download section on the front page of TPU), and install it? It sounds a little like the Windows supplied Nvidia driver has either taken hold. This step will install over that. At this point, if you have used DDU and nothing is there, this will be fine.

 

[PeacefulTech]

Hmmmm, it's been a long while since I installed Nvidia's driver's in that manner. Can you just download the full driver (use the one in the download section on the front page of TPU), and install it? It sounds a little like the Windows supplied Nvidia driver has either taken hold. This step will install over that. At this point, if you have used DDU and nothing is there, this will be fine.

Do you mean I should download Nvidea driver before installing "Nvidea Control Panel"? Windows automatically reinstalled that the first time I boot up my system again after DDU, so I'm not sure how to stop it from doing that. Do you know of a way?

Or do you mean I should download the Nvidea driver from the official website without downloading the GeForce Experience application first? I do see there being an option on the Nvidea website to only download the driver rather than the GeForce Experience application. Do you think that would make a difference?

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Depending on resolution/setting DLSS can look blurry I can't remember if it's on by default and if you have any raytracing features turned on it would explain the poor performance.... Even at 1440p the 8GB on the 3070 can be a problem with raytracing on as well.

To stop windows from auto installing a driver I usually just unplug or disable internet.

 

[watzupken]

Try to go to the game settings and disable the "Film Grain" and "Chromatic Aberation" options. The former is the main culprit of the fuzzy image from what I recall. Another settings to investigate is the DLSS quality setting (assuming you enabled it) because if you select "Performance", depending on the resolution that you game, it will render from a very low resolution and try and upscale to match the resolution of the monitor.

As to the GPU utilization, you can always use "Afterburner" with the Rivatuner plugin I believe, which should allow you to either overlay information FPS, GPU and CPU utilization, etc. Otherwise, the built in monitoring tool in Afterburner should tell you the GPU utilization rate. If the GPU is indeed running at 1%, you should ideally be watching a slideshow in a taxing game like CyberPunk 2077.

 

[las]

Enable Geforce Experience (Experimental) Overlay and check GPU usage ingame.

3070 should be night and day faster than 5600XT

DDU or Reinstall if not

 

[GerKNG]

Task Manager does not monitor most new cards in DX12, Vulkan and some DX11 titles.

completely normal, known since at least 3-4 years.

there is nothing wrong, no troubleshooting necessary.

 

[FireFox]

Maybe he should try Heaven Benchmark and see if the card is running at 1%

 

[pantherx12]

Protip: windows has built in monitoring tools with the latest updates.

Windows key + G I believe.

Bottom left panel is GPU, press the pin icon to have it display even when windows game panel is closed. No need to download anything.

 

[xrobwx71]

so I'm not sure how to stop it from doing that. Do you know of a way?

Yes,
Click on the start button, type device installation, when it pops up click on Change Device Installation Settings, choose No, ignore the lie in parentheses, click save changes.

When you run DDU, you have a choice to remove Nvidia, AMD, or Realtek Audio. Run DDU in safe mode, choose Nvidia, let it run through its process. Run DDU again, choose AMD, let it run through its process.

Download the latest driver from Nvidia.com and install it from that.

 

[Night]

Might as well be what @GerKNG mentioned, I tried running Mad Max (uses DirectX 11) for the sake of testing, and GPU usage was noticable in Task Manager, you should try some other game. Also as mentioned before, if your GPU wasn't utilized you wouldn't be able to play anything more demanding than tetris. It's 99% a bug in Windows or drivers.

 

[neatfeatguy]

For installing drivers with Windows 10 for GPUs you should follow these steps since Windows 10 likes to automatically try to do everything for you when it shouldn't.

First - find the latest Nvidia driver from their website and download it to an easy to find location for you.
Second - Make sure you have DDU installed and ready to use
Third - disconnect your ethernet cable or disable your Wi-Fi (whatever option you have setup to get you online).
Fourth - run DDU and uninstall any current graphic driver(s)
Fifth - install the saved Nvidia driver you have saved on your computer
Sixth - reconnect your ethernet cable or re-enable your Wi-Fi

That's how I handle things with Windows 10 so it's not trying to automatically install the driver (which may be old) when I don't need it to.

In terms of monitoring GPU usage, I will either check that with MSI Afterburner or GPU-Z.