Menu causes max GPU utilisation every time I open it.

Mr S · Mar 29th 2023

As you can see in these two screenshots, I found that the menu causes my GPU to run at 99% utilisation every time I press the Esc button and open it. This includes the initial escape menu and the settings menu, as far as my testing has gone. My average gameplay utilisation can be seen here as around 70%. It's now much lower actually, 55% - 60% average after I adjusted graphics settings. But the menu still maxes out the GPU every time. The temps of course seem to increase a lot too and the fans start spinning louder which I suppose backs up the evidence a bit. Would it be normal when opening the menu to reduce GPU utilisation a lot, rather than increase it?

The main menu, when the game is started, runs better at around 45% utilisation for me.

I have submitted a report in case it might help.

I have both the game and my GPU limited to 60fps. I run everything in 4k and use an RTX 3080.

Hopefully we can sort it out somehow Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

red51 · Mar 30th 2023

First of all, thanks for your report Basically the frame cap set in the settings menu applies to the whole application, so it's also active in the main menu (or when hitting ESC).

I can confirm that hitting ESC increases the GPU load: in my case roughly 5% in FullHD and roughly 25% in 4K - this comes pretty close to what you're seeing. Basically the frame cap is still active, but the CPU load is usually a bit lower in the ESC menu (because some game logic is paused there) - at the same time, the screen background gets blurred, which definitely has an impact on performance (the blur is rendered at full resolution [to get a smooth result], and this results in quite some overhead, especially in 4K). Probably that's responsible for the higher GPU load in your case

Please try this: go to the game menu (rightclick on RW in your Steam library -> Manage -> Browse local files), then go to the "_New Version" subfolder and open the config.properties file with a text editor. Add this line at the bottom: Graphic_Blur=False, then save the file and run the game again. Do you still see a higher GPU load if you hit ESC?

But even if that helps, this is definitely something that could be improved Maybe it's already sufficient if we just reduce the rendering resolution if the main menu is active. Maybe we could also add a separate FPS cap setting for the menus (usually it's sufficient if it runs at 30 fps).

In the main menu, there should be a lot less load in general. Even if your GPU load is not much lower there, the driver may set a lower P-State for your GPU while you're in the main menu (it reduces the GPU performance, which may result in a higher GPU load - but overall, the graphics card still consumes less power that way)^^

Mr S · Mar 30th 2023

Oh wow that has made an amazing improvement, thanks Red51! I will attach a couple of images to show you, but the GPU utilisation stays the same, both in and out of the menu now! So much better The GPU is silent and cool now, thanks so much. Yes it would be awesome if this was at some point implemented into the game officially, if it's ever appropriate Cheers 🙂👍👍

red51 · Mar 30th 2023

Oh, thanks for the feedback, I'm glad to hear that worked So it's indeed the blur which caused the high GPU load... we'll definitely find a solution for that (but of course you could also just keep the blur disabled)

Participate now!