GPU under-utilization

[strat]

Hello everyone, I have been playing the game for several days now and decided to stop by the forums to see hows things going. Since the game is still in alpha (and its a darn good game), I am having some hardware issues. My specs are:

CPU: Intel Core i7 4790k

RAM: 16GB

GPU: GTX 980 (MSI Gaming 4G)

OS: Win 8.1

Platform: Steam

Settings: Max, No V-sync

The reason I specified the model of my GPU is that this specific model has a 0RPM mode. That means that while on idle the fans will not spin at all. Sometimes when the card receives a small amount of load only one of the fans will spin. So probably you already know where I'm getting at. Yes, the GPU has only 1 fan spinning when playing The Long Dark. The fan is not even at its full RPM. That means only one thing - under-utilization. And there's the fact that I am playing the game with 50-60fps sometimes dropping to 39. Since the game is still in alpha and has not been optimized for best performance I guess that's perfectly normal. I hope soon we will be seeing some more improvements.

Cheers

[Geck0]

My R9 290 (at stock clocks) runs 100% GPU utilisation but I'm on a QNIX 2710 @ 2560 x 1440 @ 120Hz - What resolution are you running? If it's only 1920 x 180 and the game hasn't been optimised then that probably explains it.

[strat]

Yes I'm running at 1080p 144Hz

[Geck0]

We're probably getting reasonably similar framerates, I sometime see "hitching" when panning left and right while outdoors but it's not what I'd call annoying or anything. To go out on a limb and carrying a few grains of salt I would say it's a combination of unoptimised code game side and dare I say it, fairly green drivers client side as Maxwell isn't a real mature platform yet while GCN is.

Not much help I know but be patient, it's hard sometimes to remember that TLD is alpha because it's so polished as is.

[Lux]

I get around 50-60 fps running 5916x1200, maxed settings, on a single 780gtx (non Ti version) so the game is not very taxing on hardware really which is nice to see.

I attribute that fact along with Maxwell's horsepower and immature drivers to your under utilization issue.

Also, I don't know if the TLD team is working with either Nvidia or AMD but I'd guess neither since the game is still in Alpha, so neither are going to have optimized drivers for the game.

I'd say until the game is out of Beta which is probably at least a year away, performance is going to be a total crapshoot for everyone so I wouldn't worry about it till then.

[strat]

Nah, the drivers are pretty fine. After all TLD is not the only game I am playing and the others are running awesome. The keyword here is alpha and I am calmly accepting it. The idea here is to point out that it's not the game that is too heavy to run, but that there is a problem with the graphical implementation not being able to harness the full potential of GPUs.

[Lux]

Sounds like you answered your own question then. Its the graphical implementation, or as you originally stated, " I am having some hardware issues." :oops:

[Vagos]

My experience with i7 920 and GTX760 is

120fps inside with 90% gpu utilization

but

13fps outside with 30% gpu utilization, something needs to be fixed obviously.

[joki]

Similiar observations: viewtopic.php?f=72&t=3470&p=21637#p21637

I am getting a bit higher fps rates outside thou. =)

[strat]

With my specs listed in the first post, I am getting 100+ to 300+ fps inside and 30+ to around 70+ outside. Quite a big variation between low and high bounds in both cases.