"d3d_disp_limit_gpu_frames" and high CPU usage - by M.H.
M.H. on 7/5/2018 at 20:36
A while ago I got a preowned Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti graphics card after only using my Intel i7 4770K's integrated graphics for years.
I finally played Dishonored series (wow they really are a modern "Thief").
I was trying to force supersampling anti-aliasing on Thief 1+2 using Nvidia Inspector like I did many years ago when I was using a Nvidia GTS 450.
But all I could get to work was 2/4/8 times multisampling via cam_ext.cfg, so i started experimenting.
In the end it turned out that all i had to do was enabling the "Disable fullscreen optimizations" Win10 compatibility setting.
Thief 1 & 2 are now both working with "2x2 supersampling" combined with "4x multisampling", which looks much better than just 4x multisampling that the Intel IGP could handle.
The GTX 1050 Ti has nevertheless so little to do that the fans stay off all the time (passive cooled below 60°C).
Incidentally and because i was using MSI Afterburner OSD i noticed that Thief 1 & 2 utilize a single CPU thread at permanently 100% and the CPU running @ 3.9 GHz when "d3d_disp_limit_gpu_frames 1 1" or "d3d_disp_limit_gpu_frames 2 2" are used.
When d3d_disp_limit_gpu_frames is completely deactivated and instead "framerate_cap 60.0" is used the CPU usage is very low and the cpu is jumping between 800 MHz and 1.6 GHz (@ original missions) and I don't notice any difference.
Why does d3d_disp_limit_gpu_frames keep a single thread at 100% while framerate_cap does not?
This could be annoying for playing on notebooks due to heat and wasted energy.