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If you’ve searched on Google: How Do I Reduce CPU Usage in Gaming? This article is specifically for you. Gaming is surely an immersive experience that transports you to different worlds, each with its own unique set of rules, challenges, and endings, whether good or bad.
There are so many genres to choose from, like the film industry, you can dive into exploring futuristic sci-fi landscapes, such as the Starfield game, being a hero in a role-playing game like Geralt from the Witcher 3, or enjoy countless other adventures.
With all the entertainment video games give, there are a lot of problems that ruin the experience, including lag, high CPU temps, stuttering, or slow response times caused by a number of factors, including high CPU usage.
High CPU usage and High CPU temps are like two faces of the same coin; high CPU usage leads to high CPU temps, as we discussed in the previous post about what your CPU temp should be to keep getting the same great experience.
The CPU, as we explained in the previous post, is a common short term for (Central Processing Unit) is a hardware component that performs millions of calculations per second. You can think of it as the brain of your machine.
In this article, we’ll explore in detail several practical and effective ways to reduce your CPU usage while gaming to get the most out of your gaming sessions.
What is CPU Usage in Gaming?
To keep it simple, CPU usage indicates the percentage of your processor’s power and capacity being loaded at any given time. During a gaming session, your CPU handles various tasks such as executing game code and logic, NPCs and player physics calculations, AI processing, while communicating with other components like the GPU and RAM.
What % of CPU Usage Initiates Problems?
High CPU usage is not a problem if you are in a gaming session and the CPU usage doesn’t exceed 90%. However, if your CPU usage exceeded 90% and reached 100% it may indicate that your CPU is struggling to keep up with your GPU and causing what we call a bottleneck or Your CPU is quite old and weak for the kind of task that you are running, and you should upgrade it.
Now, a bottleneck, as the name suggests, is performance being squeezed in the neck of a bottle. A bottleneck is what we call when you have a hardware component that is considered weaker than the other, which holds back the other parts from performing to their full potential. In gaming, we have two major, important components: The CPU and the GPU.
In a nutshell, the CPU does the execution of the game’s code, and the GPU does the rendering of the image that you see on your screen.
You should always keep an eye on the CPU Usage from time to time, especially if you notice some changes in the game’s performance, like delayed responses, irregular frame rates, and lag, which makes the game feel a little choppy. In the next section, you will learn how to check your CPU usage.
How to Check Your CPU Usage?
Monitoring your CPU and GPU stats, and most importantly, CPU usage percentage, helps you identify common gaming problems. Ideally, there are two easy ways to monitor any kind of CPU usage:
First, the easy way is to check your Task Manager without any third-party software. Second, you can rely on the most well-known third-party software, MSI Afterburner, that comes bundled with Rivatuner Statistics Server for a real-time hardware monitoring overlayed in your game. In the upcoming section, you will know how to check CPU usage with Task Manager.
How to Check Your CPU Usage With Task Manager?
Right-click on your Taskbar and select Task Manager, or simply press Ctrl + Shift + Esc on your keyboard.
Then navigate to the “Performance” tab to monitor CPU usage in real-time. The percentage of CPU usage is now 23% in my case. There you have it, this is the easiest way to keep an eye on your CPU usage. In the next section, I will show you how to check CPU usage with MSI Afterburner.
How to Check Your CPU Usage With MSI Afterburner?
Download MSI Afterburner from the official website.
Once downloaded and installed, open the application, go to the “Settings” menu, and configure the OSD to display CPU usage and temperature in real time.
The on-screen display, or OSD for short, can show all the GPU and CPU stats overlayed on top of your gameplay. First, you need to select what items you want to see. In this case, we want CPU Usage; feel free to select anything you need, then show those items in the OSD. Click on Settings or press Ctrl+S on your keyboard to open the settings tab.
Then go to the Monitoring tab. Click the checkmark beside every statistic you need and make sure to check “Show in On-Screen Display” for every stat to display it correctly. We will choose CPU usage, RAM usage, GPU usage, CPU clock, and CPU temp.
And there you have it, this is the advanced way to keep an eye on your CPU usage or any stat you need. As you can see in my case, the GPU usage is 99% and the CPU usage is 17% which means that my GPU is very weak, well, it’s an “Intel HD Graphics” integrated video card, so it’s for sure it will be beyond weak.
How Do I Reduce CPU Usage in Gaming?
Common Ways To Reduce CPU Usage
There are several ways to reduce CPU usage that can help improve your in-game performance. Here are some practical steps to get the most out of your hardware while gaming:
- Close Unnecessary Background Programs
Use Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc) like we discussed earlier to identify and end processes that consume your CPU resources. Disable apps like browsers and their tabs, chat applications like Discord, while gaming.
- Disable Startup Programs
Go to Task Manager and navigate to the “Startup” tab in order to disable non-essential programs from starting when your PC boots up. That will save you from closing unwanted apps every time your Windows machine starts and will surely reduce Windows startup time as well.
- Adjust Power Settings
Switch to “High Performance” mode in your system’s power settings for better resource allocation.
You can do that by opening the Control Panel app, going to Power Options, and choosing “High Performance” to get the most from your computer.
- Clean Primary Disk (C:) Temporary Files
Use built-in tools like “Disk Cleanup” or third-party apps to remove temporary files that could slow down your system, like CCleaner.
Now, to open “Disk Cleanup,” you will have to open the “This PC” icon on your desktop, right-click on your (C:) drive and select properties, then click on “Disk Cleanup” to clean undesirable cache files.
Always ensure that there’s enough free space on your primary drive (preferably an SSD) for smoother gameplay and loading screen time.
- Change in-game settings
That’s right! Changing the graphics settings in the video game itself can reduce high CPU usage. Try out different resolutions and lower graphical settings like shadow quality to low or medium, reduce reflection quality, decrease the draw distance, and lower anti-aliasing settings or turn it off.
Enable GPU optimization features such as V-Sync to stop screen tearing from occurring, and if supported, enable NVIDIA DLSS or AMD FSR to benefit from your GPU AI capabilities, and assign rendering tasks to your GPU and improve game performance.
What To Do If Fixes You Tried Didn’t Work?
Upgrade Your CPU
If your CPU is weak, you should consider upgrading your CPU to a modern one with higher core counts, threads, and clock speeds that can handle modern gaming demands more efficiently.
Add More RAM
If you have 8 GB of RAM or less, you should consider upgrading your RAM to at least 16 GB or more because insufficient RAM can force the CPU to compensate, which leads to a higher usage percentage.
Invest in an SSD
As you know, SSDs are faster than classic HDDs. If you have a Hard Disk Drive, you should consider upgrading your HDD to an SSD or faster storage like M.2 NVMe.
Upgrade Your Cooling System
If you are using an old air cooling system, you should try out the liquid cooling system. It offers a quieter and more effective way to keep CPU temperatures in check, as well as CPU Usage, especially under heavy loads, in which the high CPU Usage impacts the CPU temperatures.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Don’t max out game settings to “Ultra Settings” to make the game look beautiful when your machine can’t handle it.
Don’t forget your GPU and other drivers. KEEP THEM UPDATED!
Don’t mess with CPU or GPU settings, and don’t overclock them if you are not sure of what you are doing.
Don’t install too many third-party optimization tools that promise “too good to be true” performance.
Conclusion
With the right strategies, you can fix high CPU usage during gaming. It’s possible to significantly improve performance by either optimizing in-game settings, upgrading hardware when necessary, and avoiding common mistakes as we discussed.
