Customer care

[greybeard_52]

Here follows the content of a support ticket I filed recently. I'll mark TA = Technical Assistance and C = Customer (me):

 

C.: I keep seeing excessive GPU usage in the game's initial menus. The Windows Task Manager, in the "3D" pane, shows a trend that constantly approaches 100%. During the simulation, however, the same graph stays between 50% and 60%. This could be the cause of frequent freezings and BSODs that I'm getting always while navigating menus, never during simulation.

 

T.A.: Greetings!
Please specify which program you use to update your graphics card driver?

 

C.: Thanks for your reply. Up to a certain point I used GeForce Experience, then, having doubts about stability of most recent drivers, i did a clean install of 566.36.

 

T.A.: Thanks for the feedback.
Please try to install Game Ready Driver via GeForce Experience and check the result.

 

C.: Since I already tried to keep the driver updated, although unsuccessfully, may I ask if you have a specific driver version in mind that may help my case? Thanks!

 

T.A.: No, but there are no special versions.

 

C.: So, what is the point installing Nvidia App (GeForce Experience exists no more), in your opinioni?

 

T.A.: Instead of GeForce Experience, the GeForce App is now available (if you have GeForce Experience installed, the program will automatically suggest updating it to the App).

 

C.: Sorry, there's a misunderstanding between us: I'm asking why I should install the app to update my graphics card driver, since I kept my graphics card driver up to date until recently with GeForce Experience, and the issue I opened this support page for still occurred even with updated drivers. So I'll ask again: why should I install the Nvidia app? How do you think it can solve my problem, given that it hasn't already done so in the past? Thanks!

 

T.A.: Greetings!
Thank you for your feedback and clarification.
Do you have the latest version of the video driver installed?

 

C.: I'm sorry we can't understand each other; perhaps my English isn't clear. I already told you I HAD the updated drivers, but since the problem still occurred, I preferred to install an older version, considered stable, 566.36. What I was asking you (BUT YOU DIDN'T ANSWER) was WHY, in your opinion, I should reinstall the latest driver, since I already know it doesn't solve the problem!
We've been going around this same issue for two days, to no avail. Maybe it's best if you close this support ticket because I don't want to waste your time.

[BlitzPig_EL]

How old is your computer?  What are it's specs?  How much ram do you have?  All this is relevant.

[Aapje]

High load in menu's can be caused by unrestricted FPS. I would suggest setting a global FPS limit to just above your monitor's max FPS. This is a good idea in general, regardless of whether it fixes this particular issue.

 

 

[MDzmitry]

4 минуты назад, Aapje сказал:

High load in menu's can be caused by unrestricted FPS. I would suggest setting a global FPS limit to just above your monitor's max FPS. This is a good idea in general, regardless of whether it fixes this particular issue.

 

 

Wouldn't vertical synchronization be enough to achieve the goal? It does pretty much the same thing

[Aapje]

Yes

[Heart0ne]

I've experienced the same thing with the support staff at other publishers. They read your sentence and then copy a response from a script that appears to apply to the most similar to the sentence in the script.

What is your Dxdiag and game settings? When did this issue appear?

[LuftManu]

23 hours ago, greybeard_52 said:

Text

Hello!

Usually, a low GPU usage means CPU bottleneck.  But it can be other factors. 
If you mean crashing, that could also mean low RAM or unstable RAM / CPU.

We need your specs: CPU, GPU type, Ram etc as @BlitzPig_EL commented. 

Nobody can help you (neither the support) with no specs. Please, try to find them and I am sure we can find a solution.

[greybeard_52]

On 8/27/2025 at 7:00 PM, Heart0ne said:

I've experienced the same thing with the support staff at other publishers. They read your sentence and then copy a response from a script that appears to apply to the most similar to the sentence in the script.

Actually, this was what I wanted highlight in this thread: poor assistance. Right now I think to have found a fix (after two months of failed attempts), just reducing to a minimum my graphics settings. I realized that graphics settings of the simulation applies also to menus (where I get screen freezings and BSODs). Indeed, game menus are overloaded by graphics, about twice than the simulation.

An heartily thanks to all for your kind help.

Edited August 31 by greybeard_52
spelling

[greybeard_52]

You've all been so kind that you deserve a more detailed explanation of my problem.
These are my system specifications:

As you can see, they're the minimum currently required for the game. However, I notice a huge difference between the resources required during the simulation and in the menus, as you can see from the following screenshots:

And I don't see how this could be related to my hardware.
As I said, the problem has gotten worse for me for about a couple of months, and I don't rule out the possibility that it's a consequence of the performance issues with version 6 of the game.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I think I've solved the problem so far by removing ReShade and reducing the graphics settings, but I'd appreciate some lightening of the computational load in the menus.

[Aapje]

On 8/27/2025 at 7:00 PM, Heart0ne said:

I've experienced the same thing with the support staff at other publishers. They read your sentence and then copy a response from a script that appears to apply to the most similar to the sentence in the script.

 

Let's be realistic here. Look at what you paid for a module vs what an hourly salary is. Then you know that they simply cannot afford to spend many hours debugging people's system, where in many cases, the problem is not with the game.

[Aapje]

4 hours ago, greybeard_52 said:

As I mentioned in my previous post, I think I've solved the problem so far by removing ReShade and reducing the graphics settings, but I'd appreciate some lightening of the computational load in the menus.

 

Not going to happen. The menu system is built on an obsolete third party tool. They are stuck with what they have right now.

 

Quote

As I said, the problem has gotten worse for me for about a couple of months, and I don't rule out the possibility that it's a consequence of the performance issues with version 6 of the game.

 

It is highly unlikely that something changed in the game. As I said, the menu system is an obsolete system that they are not actually changing anymore.

 

I think that it is a lot more likely that your system has an issue. Any dust in the system?

[LuftManu]

4 hours ago, greybeard_52 said:

You've all been so kind that you deserve a more detailed explanation of my problem.
These are my system specifications:

As you can see, they're the minimum currently required for the game. However, I notice a huge difference between the resources required during the simulation and in the menus, as you can see from the following screenshots:

And I don't see how this could be related to my hardware.
As I said, the problem has gotten worse for me for about a couple of months, and I don't rule out the possibility that it's a consequence of the performance issues with version 6 of the game.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I think I've solved the problem so far by removing ReShade and reducing the graphics settings, but I'd appreciate some lightening of the computational load in the menus.

 

Hi!
Let's analyze here some things thanks to your pictures!

First of all, the GPU on the menus at 100% is normal. The CPU load is almost non-existant so the GPU can spit out frames and work at 100%. This does not mean the game will use 100% of the GPU while gaming.

Some games even managed to damage GPUs while on the menu as they produce thousands of FPS. In this case, Il-2 keeps the maximum framerate of the monitor Hz. If it can reach it.

While the game is running on a map, mission and even a simple one, the CPU load will be bigger and the CPU is bottlenecking your GPU.
Your system is very old and as it is on the requirements it will work, but might not be the best experience ever.

Kind regards,

[greybeard_52]

6 hours ago, Aapje said:

Any dust in the system?

It's possible: I haven't taken it apart to clean it for two years. But why do you think dust could cause this specific problem?

[Kubert]

I checked on my PC how the game behave. For me, both GPU and CPU use are lower in the menu as in the game. I am using both V-sync and FPS lock to keep my game at the same framerate at every time and to lower the unnecessary GPU use. I don't think that excessive GPU usage is natural game behavior.

[Aapje]

2 hours ago, greybeard_52 said:

It's possible: I haven't taken it apart to clean it for two years. But why do you think dust could cause this specific problem?

 

It could be that the card can't get rid of its heat under higher load and that causes a crash.

[greybeard_52]

4 hours ago, Kubert said:

I checked on my PC how the game behave. For me, both GPU and CPU use are lower in the menu as in the game. I am using both V-sync and FPS lock to keep my game at the same framerate at every time and to lower the unnecessary GPU use. I don't think that excessive GPU usage is natural game behavior.

Thanks! Your information is helpful. Could you please tell me the respective GPU percentages in the menus and in the game?
I also limited the frame rate to avoid unnecessary GPU strain. Here are my graphics settings:

 

4 hours ago, Aapje said:

It could be that the card can't get rid of its heat under higher load and that causes a crash.

I think I can rule this out: I monitored the GPU temperature for a long time and several times and it never exceeded 70°C.

[Kubert]

8 hours ago, greybeard_52 said:

Could you please tell me the respective GPU percentages in the menus and in the game?

On empty Stalingrad autumn map with one Yak parked near runway at 13:00 hours with few clouds, my GPU usage is 45-50%. In the menu, is roughly 10% lower, 35-40%. 

 

8 hours ago, greybeard_52 said:

Here are my graphics settings:

You should lower shadows to medium at most and MSAA to 4 or 2. GTX 970 is very old card and shadows with anti-aliasing are the most performance demanding settings. Also, I am not sure if 4k rextures are the best choice for GTX 970. Textures requires a lot of VRAM. GTX 970 have only 3.5GB. I know on my system GPU uses more than that. 6GB or more if I remember correctly at 1440p resolution with 4k textures on.

[greybeard_52]

3 hours ago, Kubert said:

my GPU usage is 45-50%. In the menu, is roughly 10% lower, 35-40%.

I think this is the key point: there's something in my system that's overloading the menus (I'm sorry I thought it was a game glitch) with spikes over 100% that then cause screen freezings and BSODs. It would be a miracle if I could figure out what it is...
Anyway, for now, I've put all your advice into practice and am seeing how it goes. Thanks for all the help.

[greybeard_52]

On 9/1/2025 at 12:17 PM, greybeard_52 said:

It would be a miracle if I could figure out what it is...

Perhaps a miracle happened: after reducing the graphics options (which already achieved good stability, with minimal losses in image quality), I decided to install the oldest graphics card driver I had (472.12), and now I've had no screen freezes or BSODs for two days (they used to happen at least once a day). A lot has happened in these two months, but, thinking back, it's possible the problems began when I started updating the driver via GeForce Experience. Going back to what I had before seems to have solved the problem.

[Aapje]

I would generally advise not to upgrade your GPU driver unless there is a really good reason, if you have old hardware like this. There are generally going to be no improvements that are relevant to such an old card, and the driver team is unlikely to test with such an old card.

 

Note that Nvidia is stopping driver support for your card anyway, or has already done so.

[MDzmitry]

11 минут назад, Aapje сказал:

Note that Nvidia is stopping driver support for your card anyway, or has already done so.

Yep, they're about to stop supporting 10-series already, to say nothing of 9--