100% GPU usage in Editor - Halp?

[mausAU 10]

I'm sitting in the Editor, looking at 2D placeholders of objects and my GPU usage is at 100%. For the life of me I can't think of one conceivable reason why this would be happening. It doesn't even use my GPU that much when I'm in the middle of a large scale hell-on-Earth firefight.

This is not good! It wasn't doing it yesterday.

Anyone able to shed light on this? Anyone know of a way to rectify this? I can't sit here editing for hours with the the card pumping out all that heat and noise.

Halp!

Ty.

[nicolasroger 11]

Use a programm like FRAPS to look at your FPS, i am willing to bet you have a FPS of like 300 in the editor. Wich is why your GPU usage is so high. The best way to reduce your gpu usage in editor is to use a FPS limiter.

[mausAU 10]

Use a programm like FRAPS to look at your FPS, i am willing to bet you have a FPS of like 300 in the editor. Wich is why your GPU usage is so high. The best way to reduce your gpu usage in editor is to use a FPS limiter.

Thanks for the quick reply. You picked the door with the prize behind it! I'm getting 1300 FPS in the editor.

The editor must load everything as 3D then convert it into 2D placeholder stuff, but keeping the 3D part rendered - not even occluded? Bizarre.

Was that a lucky/informed guess on your part or have you heard of it happening before?

Edit: This is bizarre. In-editor looking @ spot X = 1300 FPS, 100% GPU usage.

In-preview looking @ vast airfield loaded with tanks, vehicles, choppers, rain, particle effects etc = 63 FPS, 51% GPU usage. That alone is bizarre - but when I hit escape in the preview and just sit it on the menu the GPU usage rises to 100% again! On the damned menu! Even enabling Vsync doesn't do anything except lock the FPS at 60 - the GPU usage % still climbs almost instantly to 100%!

Edited March 18, 2014 by mausAU

[xendance 3]

Why does it matter?

GPU will always try to render a scene as fast as possible. The editor is really simple for your CPU to submit to rendering on your GPU, which means you'll GPU will be working 100%. GPU usage in large scale fights is a completely different issue, as there you're most likely CPU bound, while in editor you'll be GPU bound.

[nicolasroger 11]

Was that a lucky/informed guess on your part or have you heard of it happening before?

Yes It happened to me before. There is a launch parameter that make the game load on the menu without loading an island (only water). I can't remember the name of said parameter, but when I used it I instantly had 300 FPS on the main menu. I remember I used this launch parameter to test the effects of graphics settings on water performance in the main menu.

I heard (but I am no expert) that FPS goes up because your cpu has pretty much nothing else to do except send renderintg calls to your GPU. When in a big battle, gpu usage goes down because the cpu needs to do other stuff and thus delay the render calls a bit.

EDIT: Xendance got it first!

reEDIT: I think the parameter was: -world=empty

Edited March 18, 2014 by nicolasroger

[Fushko 59]

Thanks for the quick reply. You picked the door with the prize behind it! I'm getting 1300 FPS in the editor.

The editor must load everything as 3D then convert it into 2D placeholder stuff, but keeping the 3D part rendered - not even occluded? Bizarre.

Was that a lucky/informed guess on your part or have you heard of it happening before?

Edit: This is bizarre. In-editor looking @ spot X = 1300 FPS, 100% GPU usage.

In-preview looking @ vast airfield loaded with tanks, vehicles, choppers, rain, particle effects etc = 63 FPS, 51% GPU usage. That alone is bizarre - but when I hit escape in the preview and just sit it on the menu the GPU usage rises to 100% again! On the damned menu! Even enabling Vsync doesn't do anything except lock the FPS at 60 - the GPU usage % still climbs almost instantly to 100%!

It's simple, menus are easy to render, which means more FPS-> more work for the GPU -> more GPU usage. Cap your framerate using a framerate limiter, like the one in Nvidia Inspector if you have an NVIDIA card.

[daze23 1]

use vsync or some other method to limit your framerate

---------- Post added at 13:19 ---------- Previous post was at 13:17 ----------

Why does it matter?

because he doesn't need his GPU making all that noise (and heat) just so he can have 300 fps in the editor

[Sneakson 1]

Try having an FPS counter on at all times for a while and you'll be surprised.

Commonly 2D graphics are drawn as quickly as a graphics card can handle meaning you will have 100% usage, consume more electricity, heat up and so on even when it is absolutely unnecessary.

Try measuring fps during the intro or menus of most games. Often it goes into the several thousands and this can actually cause a whining noise from your components called coil whine.

Use MSI Afterburner or an equivalent program and limit your fps to 60, 120 or double whatever your monitors Hz if you want to play it safe.

Less fps, less usage, less electricity, less heat, less noise… free, freeeee!

This is a common “issue†though it rarely causes a problem. Adobe Reader and some other cleverly designed programs automatically scale the framerate so it always is the lowest it has to be to accurately show what’s happening on screen and if there’s nothing happening the framerate will freeze completely. ARMA editor SHOULD be locked to 144 fps or something.