When I play games, including relatively light ones, my GPU usage usually stays around 20–50% at about 40–50°C. However, whenever I press the Windows key or switch toward the desktop, the frame rate suddenly becomes extremely high and GPU usage jumps to 99%, causing the temperature to rise as well. This happens in every game I've tried, not just one title. My system has an RTX 4060 Ti and a Ryzen 7 5700X. What could be causing this?
3 Answers
This may simply be the game rendering without a frame limit when it loses focus or transitions to the desktop. Check whether V-Sync, an FPS cap, HDR, or a high desktop resolution is enabled differently outside the game. Also check your monitor settings and the NVIDIA control panel for a global frame limit. Running dxdiag and making sure the GPU driver is stable and up to date would also be worthwhile.
A brief 99% GPU reading is not automatically dangerous, especially if the temperature remains within normal limits. The important things to monitor are sustained temperature, clock speed, and whether the usage stays high after returning to the game. If the temperature keeps climbing unusually high, reinstall or update the graphics driver and verify that the desktop resolution and HDR settings are not unexpectedly set to 4K or 8K.
The exact game and display settings can matter, since some games are poorly optimized and may render hundreds or thousands of frames in menus or when unfocused. A 4060 Ti can easily do that in a lightweight scene if there is no FPS cap. Check for unlimited menu or background FPS settings, and consider enabling V-Sync or setting a reasonable maximum frame rate. Also close unnecessary browser tabs and overlays while testing, since they can add GPU load.
It happens with every game, not only the football game I was testing. I mainly noticed it because the frame rate becomes absurdly high, rather than because the game is glitching.