GPU load is 99%

Hi,

My gpu (GTX970) is running at 99% load on the gpu while playing rust is this ok? It’s not over heating still running at 70 degrees.

Is it normal?

I’m a noob when it’s comes to these things

Thanks

Adam

Yes, it's entirely normal.

99% load means your GPU is being fully used. That's fine, because that's exactly what it's for.

70 degrees is a very good temperature for a GTX 970 under max load. Mine often runs at 79 degrees C under load (which is fine too).

What framerate are you getting? if you're running lots above 60fps you could always cap your frame rate or use vsync. If you're on a 60hz monitor and the graphics card is pumping out 300 frames per second, there's not usually much point to that.. because the screen only refreshes 60 times per second, so you can only see 60 of those 300 frames per second anyway.

But even then there's no harm to running the GPU at 99% load with surplus frames per second, beyond adding a few pence to your electricity bill.

If you were playing Witcher 3, Mass Effect Andromeda, Fallout 4 with mods, Watch Dogs 2, or any one of hundreds of titles at very high settings, you'd expect the GPU to be at max load, even at only 60fps, and this would be 100% normal

Thanks for your quick reply oussebon

Usually my FPS is about 90ish in game so I will cap it to 60.

I was getting worried that my precious pc was going to get poorly 😭😂.

Thanks for your help appreciate it.

Here's another way to look at it. 99% GPU usage is a bad thing.....because there is 1% of that GPU that you paid for which your game isn't using!

I have a lifetime's experience of managing performance on very large IBM mainframes as well as on PCs and the like. 100% CPU or GPU usage is not a problem. It only becomes a problem if you are seeing 100% CPU or GPU usage AND there is another task waiting to use the CPU/GPU. Then you have a problem.

Nvidia's GPUs seem to have max load reported as 99 I believe

Oussebon said:

Nvidia's GPUs seem to have max load reported as 99 I believe

Click to expand...

That wouldn't surprise me. You can't actually measure processor utilisation directly (whether it's CPU of GPU). They way you get a measure of '% in use' is by measuring the time the CPU/GPU spends idle (which really means the time it spends 'executing' the idle thread), CPU/GPU usage is the rest of the time expressed as a percentage. I'd imagine the 99% max for NVIDIA GPUs is possibly related to the way they measure idle time...?

In any case it doesn't change the common misconception that 100% in use (for any resource) is somehow bad. It's not, in fact it's perfect - as long as you don't have more work available than the resource can handle. For example, a CPU that is never more that 50% used under any workload is wasting your money, a CPU that is 100% used with all available workloads running is perfect, but but a CPU that is 100% used and with work waiting in a queue to use it is a performance problem.