CPU stuck at 50% while running certain games

Hi there guys n girls,

I'm making this post on behalf of my brother, who's having some slight CPU issues with some games. He's recently installed windows 7 (he never had this problem on windows XP), and he's noticed that on the majority of games (both full screen and not full screen), his CPU is only running at a maximum of 50% usage, as in it won't go above 50% for that program, making the game run slower than desired.

He asked me to note that his CPU is not a dual core; he has suspicions that this may contribute to the problem.

I've got a feeling that theres a very simple solution to this by means of some tick-box or setting you can adjust, but I can't seem to find it.

Any help/suggestions/pointing out what I've blindly missed is appreciated. :-D

Thanks.

 

What CPU...? And what games, and does it ever happen during any other intense/resource-heavy applications? 64-bit or 32-bit 7? If you bought it retail instead of an upgrade, you should have had both versions in the box.

I probably won't be the one who ends up helping you out with this since I'm still learning 7 and CPUs, but I figured I'll contribute by trying to get the helpers more info while we wait for them to arrive.

 

Intel Pentium 4 540 3.2ghz, the majority of games he's tried so far including Crysis, Combat Arms, Supreme Commander (although that seems to peak at about 80% instead of 50%), Unreal Tournament 3, Track Mania, Counter Strike Source (hangs around the 40 mark and still lags a lot in game), even Runescape, which isn't even a full-windowed game (uses Java)... Can't see any correlations here between game types, though I've now discovered its not always 50%... some games appear to peak at 40, some 60 some 80.

As for other resource heavy applications, Avast Antivirus also peaks at 50%.

His Windows 7 is 32 bit, and it doesn't work in 64 bit.

Hope this info helps.

 

May I ask you to clarify the problem?

The CPU is running at 50% ALL the time?
Or his games are lagging and he thinks his CPU isn't providing full/enough power?

What settings does he have the games on?

Crysis will eat a P4 alive on high settings, Combat Arms is pretty low usage as is Rune Scape.
Not sure about the others as I havn't played them.

How is he checking the % of the CPU?
And when?

How much RAM does he have?

What Video Card does he have?

 

Sure thing.

The CPU runs normally, until he runs a program/game that requires more than 50% of the CPU's power. The games that need more than this amount are lagging and the CPU isn't providing full power, as it caps at a certain mark that's different for certain games. The majority of these are 50%, but some are peaking around 40, some 80...

Example: Counter Strike Source runs fine with 2 bots on each team, since its only using about 20% of the CPU's power. When he increases the number of bots to 16 on each team, the more power the CPU needs to use, but the game uses a maximum of 50% of the CPU's power, and it still lags (meaning it obviously needs more power to run smoothly). Normally for most computers I've used, the game would try to use between 90-100% of the CPU's power. My brothers is not.

I realize that his processor isn't the best out there (far from it), but the problem is when he had XP on his computer, he could run Crysis without much difficulty (a little lag, but nothing compared to the amount now). Games such as Combat arms/Runescape are relatively low usage games, but because they would still use more than 50% of the processor's power if they could, they're lagging.

He's checking the % of the CPU by bringing up the task manager while the game is minimised, and looking down the list for the game he's playing.

I don't think the hardware is relevant since it worked when it had windows XP (leading me to think its some sort of software setting), but here they are anyway.

4G 800 Mhz RAM (3G usable)
Nvidia 9600 512mb ddr3 video card

 

The hardware is of huge relevance.

XP Requirements

233 MHz CPU *
64 MB of RAM (may limit performance and some features) *
1.5 GB of available hard disk space *
Super VGA (800 x 600)

Vista Home Premium Requirements:

1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 GB of system memory
40 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space
Support for DirectX 9 graphics with:
◦128 MB of graphics memory (minimum)
◦Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware
◦32 bits per pixel


I've never seen any settings that either lock or unlock a % of CPU on Single core CPU's.
Also you say you've seen it at 80%, so there's your proof it's not limited to 50%

Another thing is task manager doesn't always show the full amount of CPU being used by a game when it's minimized.

I can only think of 2 things that it could be (quite possible someone else has a better answer).

1: Your CPU is dying.

2: Vista has taken a large chunk of your hardware power which on XP was used to run the games you speak of.

Since the problem only came about when you moved from XP to Vista , I would hazzard a guess at number 2.
I think the system cannot handle running these games on the settings you choose with Vista.

You may want to try and clean up some processes to help it run faster.

Download and try this...

http://majorgeeks.com/Game_Booster_d6148.html

You may find it helps a lot

 

Ok not that it makes a whole lot of difference to your point, but he's got Windows 7, not Vista... anyway, I guess I'm just not convinced that windows 7 uses 50% of his CPU power.

By the way, when the game is peaking at 50% usage, he can run other relatively strenuous programs/games at the same time quite smoothly, as they are using the other 50%... that might give a hint I dunno.

Thanks

 

Ok well there's a big difference between Win7 and Vista. Win7 being a much better OS in terms of usage.

Can you take a screen shot of Task Manager (processes tab) with it extended so to see all of them.

Honestly I've never encountered a CPU that simply wont use enough and like I said, you've seen it at 80% so it's not locked in any way.

 

Maybe a shot in the dark. But try disabling hyper threading if its enabled in the bios.

 

Wow... apparently disabling hyper threading worked. A huge thank you from my brother, and also thanks to everyone who tried to help, successfully or not.
Now he's out of my hair I can focus on trying to get my computer to run haha.

:-D

 

Haha thanks will do.
If we get any more problems like this in the future we know who to come to