GPU and CPU usage spikes while gaming, frames drop then screen goes black, then comes back...

Hi,

What are your PC specs?

When it comes to games, the CPU handles the game logic, the AI and also, crucially, draws the screen (frame by frame) and sends this information to the GPU to 'Render' those frames. CPU's don't care about screen resolutions, if a game runs poorly, first try lowering the resolution. If lowering the resolution has no effect, the poor performance is a CPU bottleneck.

A classic example of a CPU bottleneck is when the you see on a benchmark or frame rate tool that the CPU is running at 100% (or near to) and the GPU is only running at 30% utilisation. In this scenario, the CPU is running flat out sending data for the GPU to render, but it's so slow that the GPU is left waiting around, hence poor performance.

If you've got a poor system then then only way to get better performance is to drop settings upgrade or buy a better machine. If you're gaming PC is a laptop then I'm afraid upgrading beyond memory or storage won't be possible.

Depends what you mean by dropping frames. If you're already on a high FPS, it could be a CPU heavy area of the game. So instead of 100fps, you'll get less, but not 100% usage on your GPU as it's CPU related slow down.

Haven't got Elden Ring, but I know Cyberpunk has CPU heavy areas.

Hello SwagLazer.



Welcome to Microsoft Community.



Regarding to your information I assume that you had a bad experience when you played the Halo Infinite.

Do you experience significant frame rate drops in both multiplayer mode and campaign mode? Does it suddenly drop to a low frame rate

and then come back, or does it consistently stay at a low frame rate? Please check if you have enabled the recording function in

Settings->Game->Camera. If it's enabled, please disable it. Also, try turning off HDR mode (if available) to see if the frame rate drops persist.

Additionally, I recommend enabling vertical sync and checking the GPU usage and CPU frequency while playing the game.



If there is anything not clear, please do not hesitate to let me know.



Best Regards,



Tommy-MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

1. All Drivers are up to date

2. Games were already at lowest settings when testing fps

3. Temps were stitting at a solid 70 c cpu and 40 c gpu

4. While gaming there was only 30% cpu usage and 5% gpu usage

I set my laptop on high performance on windows and NVIDA control panel. also made sure that the game was using the NVIDIA GPU.

I launched the game for about 6 minutes and the first 5 minutes I was getting from 70 to 90 FPS with a 99% GPU usage and a CPU being used at around 40-50% with some spikes that would go to to high 60s and low 70s. But after that the GPU usage dropped to the 70s and FPS dropped to 50-60. I got killed and the GPU usage dropped to the 30s while the CPU stayed in the 30-40s.

I just recently factory reset my laptop due to a connection to monitor issue and I dont have anything downloaded except for hell let loose.

I also have a problem where the audio suddenly stops working until I toggle off and on spatial sound or audio devices. This started after the factory reset, I got help on another post which fixed it for a little bit but now its back. How to fix audio problem? - Microsoft Community here is the post if you like to help out.