Gamers never like even minimum stuttering and yet they have to deal with this issue over and over again. Why is it so hard to fix? You buy the most powerful graphics card and think that the problem should be gone; but to your surprise and utter disappointment, the stuttering during the game still exists. There can be a number of primary reasons behind all these not-so-good gaming experiences, and the CPU bottleneck is at the top of the list. In order to know about the methods of fixing CPU bottlenecks, first of all, you need to gather information on what is this thing and then how this problem affects playing computer games. We are going to accumulate a detailed look into the CPU bottleneck in this article.
What is CPU Bottlenecmore than you need a powerful graphics card. Many gamers do not realize it and they just blame the graphics all the time. In reality, it is more likely that it is the CPU bottleneck that causes all the trouble in gameplay.
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What are the Causes of CPU Bottleneck?
Although the CPU bottleneck does not harm your computer in a major way, you still want to solve it for better gaming experiences. That’s why we need to go deep into the matter and try to find out what are causes that are responsible for CPU bottleneck.
1. Your CPU might remain busy processing other commands while you are playing a game. So, multi-tasking and running background applications can be good reasons for overloading the CPU.
2. The low specification of the CPU is another major cause of the bottleneck. You cannot expect high-resolution games such as Assassin’s Creed, Asphalt 8, Metro Exodus, FIFA 22, etc. to play smoothly on an Intel Core 2 Duo or Core I3 processor. It does not matter how good your graphics card is.
3. All the games are not the same. Some games are CPU dependent i.e. requiring 100% CPU attention while the resolution is low. Other games may need 80-90% CPU resources and 100% GPU resources; these are the GPU-dependent games. Hence, playing CPU-dependent games on a poor CPU specification causes a CPU bottleneck.
4. Sometimes in-game wrong settings and details do not match with the hardware which in turn, provides stuttering gameplay.
Methods of Fixing CPU Bottleneck?
Now that we know what CPU bottleneck is and what are the major reasons for causing CPU bottleneck, we can move toward finding the solution. As the problem might occur at different sources and levels, hence we need to address these issues by having multiple solutions. Let’s pinpoint some of the fixes that you should try.
Finding the Right Balance of Hardware
A powerful CPU with low quality GPU won’t resolve your issue. In the same way, buying a high-end graphics card while using the old and low specified processor won’t work either. Thus, there should be a balance when choosing CPU and GPU. Some say that the GPU bottleneck is not a bad thing with a powerful CPU. Yes, the stuttering issue may be solved. But you don’t want to play games with low resolution. All in all, balancing is the ultimate solution.
Removing Background Staff
Running background apps and software kills your device’s performance. Many do not even know how many staff keeps on running while they play games and the game, obviously, runs like a tortoise as the CPU is busy on something else. Let’s look at the following figure- the CPU is 36% occupied even when there is no game running. Remove these unnecessary processes from the background before starting a game.
Monitoring CPU Performance
There are many apps available on the internet that can show you how your CPU is performing while doing a task or multiple tasks. Download and install any of them. When you play a game, open the monitoring app too so that you can learn how your processor performs while playing this particular game. If you find out that the CPU is occupied by almost 100%, try to lower the resolution to offload some of the data.
Changing In-Game Settings
Lowering in-game resolution may resolve the issue. Resources like vegetation, population density, variety, distance scaling, etc. depend so much on the CPU. So, lowering these data in the game should fix any sort of stuttering and increase FPS thereby.
Overclocking RAM
Overclocking means increasing the speed of a component, but it was not designed for it. It should not be the first or second attempt to fix the CPU bottleneck. You may understand, commanding the RAM or CPU to run crossing their limit is a risky idea. So, you should try this only if other fixes do not work for you. Overclocking RAM or CPU is done on the BIOS page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does CPU bottleneck lower FPS?
Yes, it does lower FPS. When your rig faces a CPU bottleneck issue that means the CPU can’t work properly and the components connected to it also won’t perform properly; as a result, the FPS will be below average.
Does overclocking CPU help bottleneck?
Yes, it helps to solve issues that are associated with CPU bottlenecking.
Can CPU bottleneck damage my PC?
Certainly, it can damage your PC. Overheating can be produced due to CPU bottleneck and it’s very dangerous for the other components as well as the CPU. It may end up damaging the whole system.
Conclusion
Hopefully, you have understood the matter of CPU bottleneck and you have managed to solve the gaming issue by trying the fixes provided in this article. If the problem persists, then I am afraid, you have to change your hardware altogether. That’s it for today; see you in our next article.
