Witcher 3 Is using Onboard graphics instead of my GPU

[HelloImMat]

Witcher 3 Is using Onboard graphics instead of my GPU

So, it's been a while since I had this issue (for like a year or two) and I've let it aside for a while, but now I feel the urge to play this game again.
I have the pre order with season pass. And my issue is this following, when I start the game I can get to the menu, but at the main menu I already feel the graphics not being as smooth as it used to be.
So I click to continue the game and I see the issue literally less than a frame per second. I've noticed that the game is recognizing that the onboard graphics card of my i7 is running solo the game and my GTX 1070 isn't getting any load.
I've seen alot of posts on the internet about the issue and none of them seem to solve my problem.

Specs: Windows 7, Intel i7 4790k, GTX EVGA 1070 FTW OC, 16GB RAM, it's running on my 2TB hard drive and I have a 700W psu so it shouldn't be a power issue.

 

[HelloImMat]

Also, I'm running the game via Steam.

 

[SigilFey]

Please, disable all overclocking while we troubleshoot. After we get it working, you can feel free to try applying it again, but I recommend doing so very sparingly. TW3 doesn't always cooperate well with OC.

1.) Go into the Nvidia Control Panel --> Manage 3D settings --> cllick the Program Settings tab --> select witcher3.exe from the pull-down menu.

2.) In that menu, select CUDA - GPUs. It should say, "Use global setting (All)". Click that and a small sub-menu will appear.

3.) Click the dot next to "Use these GPUs" and check the box next to your GTX 1070.

4.) While there, ensure that Power management mode is set to "Prefer maximum performance".

Let us know how that goes!

 

[HelloImMat]

Didn't worked, here's how my control panel is looking. The game is still running on my CPU only. Any other ideas? (Nothing is overclocked)

-Edit: Sorry for the language, it's PT:BR, brazilian portuguese.

 

[SigilFey]

Grrr... It's probably the drivers then. From what I can see (with my limited understanding of Latin languages) it seems you've done everything correctly. Try rolling back drivers in succession until you find one that works by default.

You may want to begin this process by wiping drivers from your system by using Display Driver Uninstaller.

 

[HelloImMat]

Sorry for gravedigging, after using DDU and installing the drivers version by version I had given up for a while.

Now I feel that theres no solution for this issue...

I've disabled on my bios the integrated graphics and still picks up

 

[SigilFey]

I would not recommend fiddling in the BIOS, nor disabling anything that is "on-board" your motherboard. This is certainly a Windows issue at its source. I would contact the manufacturer of your PC and ask if they installed any sort of software that could be having this effect.

Can you tell me where you downloaded the GPU drivers from? Was it directly from nvidia.com, or did you download them from a manufacturer's website?

 

[HelloImMat]

I've built my own pc, I can ensure that theres nothing wrong with it, I used to run the game just fine but in the middle of the Hearthstone DLC, (at the time Blood and Wine wasnt launched yet) I've started having this issue.

I download my GPU drivers direct from NVIDIA website. and the updates from GeForce Experience, but I've already tried later versions still the same issue.

All my other games run just fine, I only have this issue with Witcher 3.

 

[SigilFey]

There's always a problem child. Seems like it's TW3 in your case. If the problem started in the middle of Hearts of Stone, then it was likely not the program that caused it, but rather something else that changed on your system. Some other things:

1.) Try uninstalling and reinstalling Google Chrome. It seems that odd problems with the game are sometimes corrected by doing this. (Likely plugins of some sort that are creating issues.)

2.) Ensure you install / repair all Microsoft Redistributables: DirectX, .NET Framework, Visual Studio and C++, XNA Framework, etc.

3.) I strongly recommend against using Geforce Experience. I would completely uninstall that. I've found it's "recommendations" to be off the mark, and it introduces software that can significantly degrade performance in games (like Nvidia Shield stuff).

4.) And lastly, something I should have asked back at the beginning -- are you using any mods or have you ever used any?

I download my GPU drivers direct from NVIDIA website. and the updates from GeForce Experience, but I've already tried later versions still the same issue.

This I'm not understanding. What are you referring to when you say "updates"? The drivers that Geforce Experience will download are full driver versions, same as you can manually download from Nvidia.com.

In general, you really don't want to update anything unless you encounter a problem. I often go about a year (or longer) between updating video drivers. Especially for gaming, if there is no problem, it's a great idea to leave your operating environment exactly as it is.

 

[shofeetbb]

I'm having a similar issue in here in 2019. Started playing TW3 again here in 2019. A few days ago i was using a 1080ti and was getting 30-45% CPU usage and about 40% GPU usage. That usage seems pretty normal for a game like this. Just yesterday my 2080ti showed up so i tested it with TW3. The first day i didn't have my performance control panel up so i don't know what the usage was with the new card being installed. Today i was playing and i had the control panel up, it was saying my GPU was at 2% while my CPU was up in the 70-80% range. After resetting my PC and triyng again, the usage was at 10-%17% which is still so low. I'm still getting very good fps 125-160 running around Novigrad, it just bothers me that my GPU is doing nothing. Did you guys ever find a fix? im using driver version 417.35 (the latest driver) I would revert to an older driver but i know this driver was suppose to be a fix for the 20 series GPU crashes/other issues. Black ops 4 and battlefield 5 are having the same issue. The only game i tried that was using 100% GPU and 80% CPU was AC Odyssey. I don't get it. I'm gonna do more trouble shooting but maybe someone will see this and give a good tip. Thanks!

My Specs if this helps.
GPU - RTX 2080 TI
CPU - I7-8700K @4.8
RAM - Trident Z 32GB (4x8) @3200mhz
MOBO - ROG STRIX Z370-H
PSU - EVGA 1200w
Storage - 1tb Samsung 960 M.2
Resolution - 1080p @240hz

 

[SigilFey]

I'm still getting very good fps 125-160 running around Novigrad, it just bothers me that my GPU is doing nothing.

This is the key. As long as your performance is good, there's no actual issue. I would really recommend capping frames to 120. Unlimited FPS is simply cooking your hardware for no real gain in this case.

Today i was playing and i had the control panel up, it was saying my GPU was at 2% while my CPU was up in the 70-80% range. After resetting my PC and triyng again, the usage was at 10-%17% which is still so low.

You're seeing what we call a "bottleneck", but in your case it's not severe enough to cause any issues. The 2080 ti is beast of a card, and TW3 is a CPU-intensive game. Drivers may have a bit to do with it, but I'm not seeing anything here that looks "wrong". Again, capping your frames and turning Vsync on will likely smooth this out a bunch.

In general, you do not ever want to see either the CPU or GPU hitting 100%. That means it's being pushed to its limits, and it's never a good idea to push any machine to its limits for constantly. 70%-80% under load is about average. Certain scenes / situations in games might spike up towards 100%, but they should quickly drop back down. (Mostly, this should be a result of really complex scenes with lots of stuff going on. Something like a whole bunch of explosions with lots of characters on screen in a really detailed area with ragdoll physics everywhere. That might make the CPU and/or GPU spike up toward 100%, but no game should be living there.)

To me, what your seeing is a system working overtime to produce unlimited FPS. Remember that you'll never see more FPS than your monitor's present refresh rate: a 60 Hz monitor can only produce 60 FPS maximum, a 120 Hz produces 120 FPS max, etc. All of those extra frames are simply be dropped. Unlimited FPS is primarily for games that are having trouble maintaining playable FPS. Vsync is a preference thing, but it's usually a good idea to use a frame cap of some sort if you're not using it. (Sometimes Vsync + Frame Cap is needed to smooth things out.)

 

[DrizzyDrake57]

So I have had this issue since I've played the game. The Witcher 3 is ONLY using my CPU while my GPU is at 0%. I cant figure out how to fix it.

 

[SigilFey]

So I have had this issue since I've played the game. The Witcher 3 is ONLY using my CPU while my GPU is at 0%. I cant figure out how to fix it.

It sounds like the game is not utilizing your GPU. What are your specs? (Very hard to provide any sort of feedback if we don't know what your hardware / OS / settings are.)

What I would guess, however, is that you need to go into your GPU Control Panel, go to the game specific settings for witcher3.exe, and tell the PC to use ONLY your GPU. It's probably defaulting to the mobo's on-board video.

Is this a laptop, by any chance? If so, always ensure you are plugged in when playing TW3. Performance can plummet when trying to play demanding games on battery.

 

[Ninjafish46]

So I have had this issue since I've played the game. The Witcher 3 is ONLY using my CPU while my GPU is at 0%. I cant figure out how to fix it.

my pc is doing the same thing where the cpu is running the game along with the ram but the gpu is doing nuthing i have a ryzen 3600 with 16 gb ram and a gtx 1070ti so my specs are fine but the game is only running of cpu and rame and not doing anything with the gpu

 

[Nokturnalex]

Getting the exact same problem. Spiking to 100% of my CPU in cities while using almost none of my GPU. Reducing the Resolution seems to be the easiest way to lower the CPU load but it doesn't fix it so it'll use the GPU more.

Specs
intel i7-2600k quad core CPU
Nvidia GTX 1070 GPU
Win 10 64 Bit
12gigs of RAM

Messing with both the user settings.ini and Nvidia Control Panel does nothing to fix the problem. Only thing I can think is Witcher 3 is no longer working with the latest Nvidia drivers, which should definitely be fixed by the developers.


Switching between Fullscreen and Borderless Windowed has issues as well. On Fullscreen it uses 0% of the GPU, on Borderless WIndowed it uses at most 20%. I sent a ticket to GOG Support, but it just told me to post here.

 

[devivre]

CDPR support can be reached here:

Technical Support — CD PROJEKT RED

Welcome to CD PROJEKT RED Technical Support! Here you will find help regarding our games and services, as well as answers to frequently asked questions.

support.cdprojektred.com

(for more specific technical game issues it is usually better to reach out to them, and not to GOG support)

If you think the issue is nvidia driver related it would seem like a good idea to roll back to an earlier version. If that solves the issue it‘s best to reach out to nvidia support and let them know, so they can fix it with one of their next updates.

Also make sure that none of your background applications are interfering. I‘d close everything nonessential with the Windows task manager.

Besides that, keep in mind that the CPU isn‘t that strong, so it‘s probably best to not max out the settings and maybe limit the framerate.

Usually the mentioned suggestions here should work, so it‘s strange that it doesn’t in this case.

 

[Nokturnalex]

CDPR support can be reached here:

Technical Support — CD PROJEKT RED

Welcome to CD PROJEKT RED Technical Support! Here you will find help regarding our games and services, as well as answers to frequently asked questions.

support.cdprojektred.com

(for more specific technical game issues it is usually better to reach out to them, and not to GOG support)

If you think the issue is nvidia driver related it would seem like a good idea to roll back to an earlier version. If that solves the issue it‘s best to reach out to nvidia support and let them know, so they can fix it with one of their next updates.

Also make sure that none of your background applications are interfering. I‘d close everything nonessential with the Windows task manager.

Besides that, keep in mind that the CPU isn‘t that strong, so it‘s probably best to not max out the settings and maybe limit the framerate.

Usually the mentioned suggestions here should work, so it‘s strange that it doesn’t in this case.

Yep, non-essentials are closed. Witcher 3 is the only thing trying to use the CPU, messed with the settings to reduce the over-all quality in order for it not to put too much strain on the CPU. Funny enough, the game still runs and looks good while only using the CPU, but definitely not trying to put that much strain on the CPU.

Any chance we can figure out which Driver version works? And are you not having the problem of it using too much CPU and not enough GPU? Is this is an isolated incident or is it a problem for everyone on PC right now?

*EDIT*

Got a reply from GOG Support saying that the CPU is just the primary bottleneck for the game, he didn't recommend any settings changes to fix it outside of just upgrading the CPU. I assume because Witcher 3 is built on the PhysX engine and there's no way to turn off PhysX as it's built into the game and it tries to use the CPU instead of the GPU as much as possible. Kind of funny that Nvidia being a GPU developer is forcing all the strain on the CPU with it's PhysX engine (At least for this game). You'd think they'd share the load a little better. For example games that allow you to turn off PhysX I haven't had any problems. (Switching between CPU and GPU in Nvidia Control Panel for PhysX does nothing for Witcher 3 for example)

 

[SigilFey]

Yep, non-essentials are closed. Witcher 3 is the only thing trying to use the CPU, messed with the settings to reduce the over-all quality in order for it not to put too much strain on the CPU. Funny enough, the game still runs and looks good while only using the CPU, but definitely not trying to put that much strain on the CPU.

Any chance we can figure out which Driver version works? And are you not having the problem of it using too much CPU and not enough GPU? Is this is an isolated incident or is it a problem for everyone on PC right now?

*EDIT*

Got a reply from GOG Support saying that the CPU is just the primary bottleneck for the game, he didn't recommend any settings changes to fix it outside of just upgrading the CPU. I assume because Witcher 3 is built on the PhysX engine and there's no way to turn off PhysX as it's built into the game and it tries to use the CPU instead of the GPU as much as possible. Kind of funny that Nvidia being a GPU developer is forcing all the strain on the CPU with it's PhysX engine (At least for this game). You'd think they'd share the load a little better. For example games that allow you to turn off PhysX I haven't had any problems. (Switching between CPU and GPU in Nvidia Control Panel for PhysX does nothing for Witcher 3 for example)

Hmmm.

What's your average FPS? What it sounds like to me is that the game is using your onboard video and not the GPU at all. Is this a laptop, by any chance?

 

[Nokturnalex]

Hmmm.

What's your average FPS? What it sounds like to me is that the game is using your onboard video and not the GPU at all. Is this a laptop, by any chance?

With it locked to 60 I get a constant 60 FPS even in Novigrad, it can go higher unlocked, with my settings turned down it's only using 60% of the CPU, while using on average 10% of the GPU. I really just wish there were some adjustments I could make to shift some of the load off of the CPU and onto the GPU. It's a desktop. When I swap to Fullscreen mode, I have that same problem another person had where it's not using any of the GPU.

BIOS and Drivers all up to date, Witcher 3 is the only problem child. Doom Eternal for example running fine. Had this problem prior to updating Nvidia Drivers so the latest 2 drivers at least aren't fixing it. (Don't really want to keep testing older drivers until one works)

 

[thysponge]

Change fullscreen to borderless window. Its worked on my laptop.
i7 6700HQ
intel hd 530
nvidia gtx 960m
and many other games that uses integrated graphics also works fine on borderless window. Cheers.