Newer nvidia drivers cause overall higher CPU usage, any help?

Discussion in 'Videocards - NVIDIA GeForce Drivers Section' started by Smough, Nov 20, 2021.

  1. Smough

    Smough Master Guru

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    Currently, I am on nvidia 446.14 driver, I really want to try newer ones, specially because they're need for some more recent games, but all I get is a lot more CPU usage at most games with newer nvidia drivers, thus in many cases giving me reduced performance or more stutter all around, I tried 472.47 and 496.76, in games such as Kingdom Come or RDR2, I get 20 to 30% more CPU usage on my i7 4770, say in KCD with the 446.14 drivers it stays between 35 to 50%, with the newer drivers it stays between 75 to 90%, same goes for RDR2, so at some instances the GPU usage can drop and I will get less fps and frametime spikes. Basically it's chugging my CPU for no apparent reason.

    I can reproduce this everytime, I use DDU, replace the drivers, then go the same spots in the games and CPU usage is vastly different on the newer nvidia drivers. Is this part of the nvidia driver overhead problem? How hasn't this been solved yet? Has anyone experienced similar issues? Is there any new driver from the ones nvidia has released that is free of this problem?

    Thanks!
     
  2. Astyanax

    Astyanax Ancient Guru

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  3. darah

    darah Member

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    Maybe you are experiencing shader compilation? Its pretty normal nowadays to have stuttering in game when installing new drivers and running a game for the first time. After the shader cache is built it should eliminate stutters, as well as ur cpu usage should be back to normal. Some games like overwatch and metro exodus compile their shaders on title screen on 1st run in 1 go, you should see you cpu usage spike to 100% for the first 3 mins, but should run flawlessly after. Some games compile them on the fly when visiting/loading an area for the first time, so you experience stuttering and high cpu usage. Everytime you uninstall or DDU a driver all your shader cache will be deleted, your cpu has to do it again, its why you experience it everytime you install a new driver. Dunno why games dont just come with pre compiled shaders depending on hardware /shrugs. This issue was talked about in digital foundry podcast just last week.
     
    Last edited: Nov 25, 2021
  4. Smough

    Smough Master Guru

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    The problem still remains even after subsequent runs in different games, no idea what could it be.
     

  5. Mapson

    Mapson Member Guru

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    Main culprits on my aging system Intel 2600k / 16GB 1866 DDR3 / X-Fi Titanium PCIe / GTX 1060 6GB were 'Nvrla.exe' (If testing buggy Geforce Experience, part of Frameview) and '_NvTopps.dll' eating CPU cycles or I/O.

    Likely system dependent, best overall recent drivers (DPC latency, FPS inc %1 and 0.1%) for my system are 471.96 or 471.68 with a NVCleanstall, no Geforce Experiewnce and '_NvTopps.dll' deleted.
     
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  6. disq

    disq Member Guru

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    deleted from which directory?
     
  7. Mapson

    Mapson Member Guru

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    Standard drivers in %PROGRAMFILES%\NVIDIA Corporation\NvTopps\

    DCH Drivers in %WINDIR%\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nv_dispi.inf_amd64_4a746d937e6a7240\Display.NvContainer\plugins\Session\

    The bolded characters/values may vary.
     
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  8. Smough

    Smough Master Guru

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    I don't use GFE, terrible program imo, I also tried the 471.96 driver and also had higher CPU usage at most games, like RDR2 or R6S, when I tried 446.14 drivers again, games were way more stable and CPU usage was around 15 to 20% less.

    These newer drivers only seem to perform better in the most recent games that are DX12, older games get affected in a bad way seems like.
     
  9. Mapson

    Mapson Member Guru

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    Interesting, on my aging system ( Intel 2600k / 16GB 1866 DDR3 / X-Fi Titanium PCIe / GTX 1060 6GB ) the 471.xx branch had improved CPU usage and were on par with the 'golden drivers' in the 44x.xx and 45x.xx branches.

    Higher framerates including 1% and 0.1% from driver optimisations do result in higher CPU usage as more drawcalls are prepared by the CPU but that doesn't explain the differences you are seeing.

    Wonder if it's other factors such as Spectre (OS microcode disabled here) or Windows exploit protection settings such as whitelisting game folders and disabling 'Control Flow Guard / Mandatory ASLR / Bottom Up ASLR' on a per game basis.

    Hope you find a solution, can be frustrating.
     
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  10. kman

    kman Master Guru

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    I notice if I disable CFG in some games its just smoother and this is using a 9900k.
    If you're disabling all those things for your game's then yea you're obviously gonna notice much smoother gameplay.(1% lows)
    Wish games were exempt from all these security features automatically tbh.
     
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  11. Smough

    Smough Master Guru

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    Do you disable CFG per app or globally?
     
  12. kman

    kman Master Guru

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    Globally.Been doing it for years.If you're not getting specifically targeted exploit protections are a non issue.
     
  13. Mapson

    Mapson Member Guru

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  14. xV_Slayer

    xV_Slayer Member Guru

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    Globally disables the ability to see achievements and stuff in Xbox Game Pass games so it is best to do per app as needed.
     
  15. enkoo1

    enkoo1 Member

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    Could you post screenshots with afterburner overlay showing both driver version's CPU usage in multiple games? Keep the Nvidia settings at default.
     

  16. cucaulay malkin

    cucaulay malkin Ancient Guru

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    not seeing this on mine.i updated the drivers while playing through re2 remake and looking at multiple screenshots I took cpu power is the same before and after driver swap,20-30w.
     
  17. HARDRESET

    HARDRESET Master Guru

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    461.40 is my Golden driver , for my 1080Ti , old games to Farcry6 .
     
  18. Smough

    Smough Master Guru

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    Yeah I will test 4-5 games and post the screenshots when I have the time.
     
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  19. Smough

    Smough Master Guru

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    Gonna try that one, thanks.
     
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  20. kman

    kman Master Guru

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    CFG has nothing to do with achievments/Gamepass. CFG is control flow guard which is an exploit protection.
     

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