CPU Low cpu usage + low FPS... whats going on?

So I decided to try some gaming on my notebook, seen as It's got an i5 and 6650m. I figured they'd be more than up to the task of playing my favorite driving sim.. race07.

However, when I was driving near other cars, the frame rates would get incredibly choppy. Game settings were medium, which should be plenty low enough (could play it pretty much maxed out on an old 9600gt)...

Anyway, I had a look at CPU usage and saw this..



Laptop is set to 'high performance' mode etc, so I really dont have a clue.

If anyone has any idea, they'd be greatly appreciated!

 

Define low FPS.
Remember that laptop CPU and GPU's are YEARS behind the desktop version. They might share similar architecture, but they are not the same or even close to the same performance as the desktop version. Performance is a fraction of the desktop version for 2 main reasons: it needs to consume much less power, and it needs to create the least amount of heat possible. Most GPU's need to live in a 90W limit PSU, where that 90W is shared with the rest of the system.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-6650M.43962.0.html
I don't know your game, but based on the above link, it looks like you can only play low to medium-low settings, at native resolution.

 

according to here the recommended specs are:

System: Intel Pentium IV 3.0 GHz or equivalent
RAM: 1024 MB
Video Memory: 256 MB

The laptop should easily have enough power to run this, maybe there is something going on that today's drivers aren't optimised towards.

How do other games play on your system?

Have you tired it on the lowest setting? Maybe one particular effect is slowing the game down.

 

Ouu yea, I should have checked.
Maybe your GPU is throttling. Get a program that show you the actual current clock of your GPU. I recommend AIDA64. In AIDA64, go to Computer > Overclock (no, you don't overclock anything, it just shows you speed of everything), and scroll to the bottom, you'll see your GPU current speed.

 

Are you plugged in?
Is your GPU overheating?

 

Just to make sure we're not missing any other information:

What about your RAM and memory status when playing the game?

 

Ive put the settings right the way down - still choppy It's a new system, so I'm not sure how other games play. Ill have to download some and see.

I've had a look at GPU-z and everything seems fine. GPU temps are 65ish, load 100% etc. The games only using about 200mb of Vram, so I'm starting to really get confused!

Indeed I am plugged in - not overheating at all, not even close

i5 2.3ghz, 4gb ram, 128gb SSD...

WHY IS IT DOING THIS!?! It just doesnt make sense

 

So... Just ran CS:S, and the frame rate seems to be around the same level (playable, but not smooth).

CPU usage again was always under 50%, even when I chucked on 29 bots!!

So now I'm really lost.

Prime95 stresses CPU all the way upto 100% no problem..

 

I reckon they are parked cores

http://bitsum.com/about_cpu_core_parking.php

this is actually a better link, i might find a better one, bear with me

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=1861804

or

http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=187645&highlight=parked+core

at least, that is why core 1 and 3 are lower than 0 and 2

 

I don't know any game that will use 100% of an i5/i7 quad core, this is normal. I think the problem is with the graphics. Are you using the latest catalyst drivers?

Edit: Did this game come out before multi core CPU's? Maybe parking 3 of the cores might help for this game. I seem to remember some games had issues with more than one core.

 

Ignore your CPU usage, if the game is that old it's probably single threaded, and the windows CPU usage graph always does odd things on cores with hyper threading.

One thing to check is, open up CCC and make sure that under Gaming > application profiles, everything is set to 'use application settings'.

Also, try updating the grapics card driver (can be a bit tricky with mobile parts, try your oem's website first)

 

Don't use GPU-Z. It doesn't report the actual current speed of the GPU for a lot of GPUs.
Also you want a "live" result. You want to play your game, then alt+tab and immediately check the value in front of you in AIDA64. The GPU should be at full speed and in a few seconds later drop to minimum speed. If its at minimum speed when you game than that's the problem, we need to look into.

 

Just downloaded the app, will see if it helps - thank you!

The game is much older than multi core CPU's, but has been updated since. I've got the latest drivers I can get from sony, so afaik there's no problems there.

Tried all of that. Ill have a go with core parking see what happens.

 

I can see the frequency changing on GPU-z - its going full speed then throttling a few seconds after quitting. All seems to be working fine..

 

Ok very good.
Is the game using GPU rendering. It might be using software rendering, as it might not be able to detect your graphic card. Can you try a more modern and demanding game that you have?

 

Ill download one tonight and give it a whirl.

I'm also going to try some older drivers, see if that changes anything

 

It's not the cores parking... just tried that. Get 100-200 fps on CSS, until I see bots, then it drops loads (im assuming that's cpu related), and drops all the way down to ~30...

 

Try downloading argus monitor and seeing how the cpu clock speeds/turbo behaves.

 

it turbos up to about 2.8ghz, but load is still only 30% or so..

Could it be that that's simply all the load that it requires? It doesnt explain the low fps in race07 though, although CSS seems to perform better.

-edit-

I can't believe that's all the power it needs though, as it slows down loads when any bots come into view...

 

is that full load or one core? Remember that 30% total of four cores is just over one cores worth of usage which is perfectly normal for a single threaded game. The thread will be passed from core to core to keep temperatures balanced, which is why you are seeing activity in more than one.

This leads me to believe that it may be something to do with the graphics. What model is your laptop?