Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Help Tips & Tricks Is BG3 a cpu/gpu hog?

I'm not sure if it's a bug (on my side?) or a feature...

Everytime I alt-tab to Win 10 desktop the game keeps cpu/gpu busy (even if I enter ESC-menu before).
This amounts to ~5-10% CPU & ~10-40% GPU, +5°C & +10 watt while not playing & minimized.

On the plus side there is this nice little realtime thumb-preview in my windows taskbar


my personal quick and dirty hotfix to stop this bad behaviour:

- get PsTools from microsoft.com

-create a batch file pausebg3.cmd:
pathto\pssuspend64.exe pathto\bg3.exe

-create a batch file resumebg3.cmd:
pathto\pssuspend64.exe pathto\bg3.exe -r

Suspend & resume are near instantaneous (windows just freezes/unfreezes the processs)

Specs:
Win 10
Ryzen 3600
Radeon 5700
bg3.exe & bg3_dx11.exe

Time progresses inside BG3 while it is minimized on my machine too. Nice to know there are options - I have been saving and returning to the main menu when I actually wanted the game to freeze.

Try switching between BG3.exe and BG3_dx11. On my machine BG3.exe spikes my GPU use to 99 percent right away while DX11 hangs out around 40 percent.

I understand that if Larian gets Vulkan right the game will run better on lower end machines so I'm really happy they are working to make Vulkan work but I don't think it's there yet.

DX11 does slightly better but I just don't like apps running in the background for no benefit at all. Reminds me of a tadpole-parasite in your head that drains ressources and slowly wears you down ^^

tbf apart from this minor inconvenience I don't have any issue with the graphics-engine (Vulkan or DX11) at all. The graphics just look gorgous!

I have had a lot of lag - though I talked to my local computer shop and they're ordering the parts to upgrade my PC optimally - but I brought it in so he could make sure he could get all the right parts for it. Well, I had a lot of dirt built up from smoking, clogging heat sinks, to the point that he suggested it wasn't safe and gave a quick clean. I came home and the thing is already lagging a lot less - almost not at all. If you have any of that, a professional cleaning might fix a lot of the problems.

After playing a half an hour or so I experience stuttering during cutscenes. When I first start the game there is no problem everything runs smooth, but after the half hour mark massive slow down.

I use DX11. This game has been pretty stable for me.

I was able to run four clients at ultra settings at the same time and barely a hiccup. It’s not like I have a powerful system also.

That is odd I have a system that was high end 3-4 years ago, and can still run games like Cyberpunk 2077 on ultra with no bugs or glitches. I too run the game on DX11 and for the most part runs smooth. But then when it gets to the 30-60 minute mark it begins to lag and stutter, especially during cutscenes. I know the game is in Early Access so I'm not really stressing it. I just posted the problem here to see if anyone else has had the same experience.