K’aresh: GPU sits at 90–100% utilization consistently.
Classic/Old Zones (e.g., Elwynn Forest, Stormwind, Orgrimmar): my GPU never drops below 40–50% utilization since the patch, which is ridiculous, even standing still with no players or combat. I get 40% on the warband select screen as well. In the same Classic zones prior to the 11.2 patch, GPU usage was typically below 10% when idle. My CPU usage remains very low (around 5 - 10%) in old zones and 10-18% in new Zones + K’aresh.
What I tried so far:
Capped framerate to monitor refresh rate
Tried running lower frames than the refresh rate (currently the in-game cap is set to 90 FPS and the issue remains)
Tested V-Sync on/off
Disabled all add-ons
Clean-installed latest NVIDIA drivers
Switched between DirectX 11 and DirectX 12
Reset in-game settings to default
Any help or feedback would be appreciated, thank you for looking into this!
What resolution are you playing at?
Did you leave the renderscale at 100%?
Turning down compute effects in new zones to good helps alot.
Also, check if your GPU is actually boosting to full clock speeds and look at the power draw.
The usage can be 100% but the GPU is only at low clocks if the tasks is not more demanding, so this can give a false positive
I am playing at 1440p and the renderscale is at 100%.
The GPU is not overclocked, but the usage seems to be real, it is boosting to full clock speeds and with 100% usage it draws around 190W, which is where it should be. Also, it goes to 70-72 °C and the fans ramp up quite a bit, so it must be a legit load.
Turning down compute effecets for K’aresh did help to bring the GPU usage to 50-60% for that zone, but the issue, that it is still high since the patch remains. I get 40-50% usage in classic zones with just my character around, which was 10-12% max prior to the latest patch. Previously it was lower in all the TWW zones as well.
I would understand if only the newest zones are more demanding, but it is the same in all zones and it wasn’t like this so clearly something was changed.
Appreciate your suggestion, I can keep the compute effects lowered for now, but hopefully there will be a fix.
I just checked my GPU load in front of the Dawnbreaker dungeon looking into the zone and i’m between 40-50% with optimised settings (most stuff on max or high and viewing distance and lod on 7 due to CPU limits).
This is on a 4090 though, at 1440P and 144Hz cap.
I can’t test classic atm, but it definetely should not be at 50% unless you are running uncapped or like 300 Hz
Just to be sure, you have nothing running in the background that is also using the GPU?
I play on a MSI OPTIX MAG monitor that goes up to 165Hz, but I have the game capped at 90 FPS since I don’t want the fan noise from the CPU / GPU when gaming.
Nope, I use a single display and don’t really have anything else running that could take up some of that GPU usage. That’s why I was surprised myself
I also haven’t tested it with WoW Classic, I meant the usage is high on classic zones as well, such as Elwynn Forest or Duratar for instance. Do you think it makes sense to try and roll back to GPU drivers from a couple of months back? I read online that it was recommended to someone else with similar issues.
