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Character Select / Login Screens burning out GPUs
damnacious
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 354 Arc User
When the PC version of the game is at either the Character Select Screen, or the Login Screen (i.e. the screen if you choose in-game to logout or you are logged out due to inactivity), your GPU usage may significantly increase dependent upon your settings (max settings is apparently worse) and/or your quality of GPU (RTX 3k series seem to experience less % usage).
For example, if your normal GPU usage in-game is 33%, at the Character Select Screen at max settings you may experience your GPU usage reaching 98% - for the entire duration while on those screens.
Minimising the game or placing another window as the focus will reduce GPU usage to norm.
Current data i've obtained so far from various players with various GPUs indicate the increase in GPU usage may be anywhere from 5% to 65%.
To date, there are eight (8) players where their burned-out GPUs can be directly tied to this bug, with an eleven (11) with burned-out GPUs which can not, directly, be tied to this bug.
For example, if your normal GPU usage in-game is 33%, at the Character Select Screen at max settings you may experience your GPU usage reaching 98% - for the entire duration while on those screens.
Minimising the game or placing another window as the focus will reduce GPU usage to norm.
Current data i've obtained so far from various players with various GPUs indicate the increase in GPU usage may be anywhere from 5% to 65%.
To date, there are eight (8) players where their burned-out GPUs can be directly tied to this bug, with an eleven (11) with burned-out GPUs which can not, directly, be tied to this bug.
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With FPS cap at 120, the issue goes away for me. In char screen I then get the same as ingame, about 45% GPU usage.
I suggest that you add a default menu/char select FPS cap at 30 or 60 FPS that does not affect the cap for ingame play. Overwatch has this for example. There is no reason anyone would need uncapped FPS or even 120 FPS in the menu.
I do wanna add tho that in Battlefield 2042.. I see the same thing as in NW.
▁ ▂ ▄ ▅ ▆ ▇ █ Gankdalf The Icehole █ ▇ ▆ ▅ ▄ ▂ ▁
The more information which can be gathered about this bug the better the chances it can be fixed.
I know you're an old veteran, yet just in case, you can check your FPS limiting by pressing ESC in-game > Options > Advanced > Limit Frame Rate
Then, I changed to off. The switch character screen goes to 80% to 90%.
I changed back to 60% and it now stays above 30%. And it does not go back to 4% anymore. Sigh!
If so, may I ask what GPU you're using please?
The default setting (as I never change it until now) was 60 FPS.
And before I touched the setting, it was 4%. Now, I cannot get that back.
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080.
Using RTX2070 ( on an msi GT76 Titan 95F ) my GPU doesn't go above 30% ( usually stable around 17% ).
Didn't deselect FPS limitation in case it does shoot high .
I picked up the latest driver. Restart. It helped dropping may be 2%.
However, I found something interesting. My PC connects to 3 displays.
1. a Gsync monitor
2. 1920x1200 monitor (the oldest)
3. a 4K TV.
Depends on where I 'park' Neverwinter (in Character selection screen), it has different GPU percentage.
(2) is the lowest with about 24% to 28% range. The other 2 are in 36 to 42% range.
If I set "Limit CPU usage when inactive" to "on", GPU usage drops to 4% to 6% when I am doing stuff in another window such as typing right now within the browser (and NW is in character selection screen).
When I cap the framerate to 120 ingame it is a bit better with utilisation of 60-70%:
In the charachter select window it's not a big issue in my opinion but in the login window it is. That's where you land when you go afk and you could easily run your gpu at max utilisation for hours without even noticing.
Luckily, most GPUs will shut down when they overheat too much, which is what the real issue with the max GPU utilisation will be - significantly increasing thermal temperatures, and in this respect, players experiencing this issue over a short and infrequent period may not experience any noticeable issues as most GPUs are generally designed to operate at above 80% utilisation for extended periods of time, although manufacturers and public testers appear to confirm that extended use above 60 - 80+ degrees celsius will reduce the lifespan of the GPU (which is also true for the CPU too).
However, from what I understand, the real issue lies with frequent and long exposure to this issue, which may cause components and other factors (such as thermal pastes) to degrade significantly faster than they might otherwise, while also increasing the overall Package Temperature of a player's device (i.e. the total internal temperature of the computer comprising of the combined temperatures from components such as both the GPU AND the CPU), where such thermal increases may increase the CPU temperatures to a point where, it too, begins to degrade, and thereby creating a compounding effect for the GPU and possibly the CPU.
For example, just in your screen shots above your Task Manager indicates your GPU is operating at 91 degrees Celsius, and I'd be inclined to assume that your CPU operating temperatures also increased too if your GPU was left at that temperature for any extended period of time (unless your GPU is, somehow, isolated from your CPU), with the overall result that your Package Temperatures might be reaching into that 60 - 80 degrees Celsius range.
Obviously, it's likely that every player has a different set up for their rigs, yet one player who initially drew my attention to this issue was using refrigerated cooling for their PC case internal temperature management, while using water cooling across their components, yet even with that sophisticated set up, they experienced GPU temperatures which climbed into the high 90s from a stable and norm 13 degrees under normal load, with their CPU jumping from 17 degrees up to 84 degrees - after leaving NW at the login page for 9 hours. The player ran some tests and found that after even just a week of leaving the game at the login screen for four hours per day, when they checked, they found small, but noticeable and abnormal, degradation of the thermal paste on their CPU (it had been freshly pasted before the test), with their normal baseline CPU temperatures increasing from 12 degrees Celsius to 14 degrees Celsius and their GPU increasing from 10 degrees Celsius to almost 11 degrees (in a temperature controlled room). They also noticed that under heavy load while bench testing, that their GPU and CPU max temperatures were higher than normal (by 4 and 11 degrees Celsius, respectively), with logical and subsequent decreases in their normal performance. Needless to say, after these results, and after re-pasting their CPU, they're not leaving the game running unless they're playing.
Edit: by way of an explanation, this player is employed to complete batch testing of CPUs for an organisation (which I'm not allowed to name), so when it comes to testing CPUs, they're extraordinarily and professionally experienced (hence the rather sophisticated set up).