cpu usage 100% on some games

my cpu usage is 100% constant when running some games (maybe all games havent checked yet), even when i minimize out of the game its 100% solid, once i checked are deus ex, system shock 2 and fallout 2 , games that should NOT be using 100% cpu when im alt+tabbed out to the desktop, or am i wrong here? my power setting is set to "laptop", running win xp sp2, games themselves run fine but playing deus ex my laptop overheats eventually because the cpu runs 100% the whole time apparently :/

btw i run in single core mode 1 core enabled only but i dont see how this is a problem, since all i run is single threaded apps

 

Usually games "pause" when minimized. Some games don't. I guess it is a feature, not a bug.

Cheers,

Ivan

 

your saying its normal for fallout and system shock to use 100% cpu nonstop while playing?

if im playing an old game like fallout on a laptop you can see how running the cpu at 2ghz the whole time will destroy battery time

 

Actually, older games like dues EX will use up 100% of your CPU power. Most of the rendering on older games, and older versions of directX use mostly CPU power, and unless you put a framerate limiter on the game, it will continue to eat up your CPU until there's nothing left . Newer games do far more of the rendering on the GPU, including physics in some, but still need a very powerful CPU. Single core mode SHOULD be eaten 100% when in ANY game, no matter how old the game. The game will ALWAYS put the extra CPU power to work on something for the game your running, so dont EVER expect the cpu to not be utilized 100% unless you bought a quad core.

 

aanyways for those that care about battery life while playing older games, i downloaded a program called speedswitchxp and it lets you lock the cpu in it's low-speed mode and doesnt allow it to clock up at all, its awesome, my cpu is now locked at 800mhz when playing any game, thus solving all my overheating issues, obviously older games still run fantastic at 800mhz on a c2d
http://www.diefer.de/speedswitchxp/

link for the program its very simple to use just right click on it in taskbar and choose "battery optimized" and when you want to play a new game like cs:source just switch it to "max performance" or "dynamic switching"

this increased my battery life by about 2hrs playing deus ex on battery

cheers

 

Sure, why shouldn't it?
Isn't it the goal for any game to run as smoothly as possible?
Of course you could argue that it should use vsync so it wouldn't go above 60FPS, but when it came out, it wasn't a problem. We're talking about a game that's something like 12 years old, after all.

I can see the problem regarding battery life (although the GPU isn't really used, so you should save some power there at least), but if your laptop overheats, I'd say that's unacceptable.
If I buy a PC, laptop or desktop, I expect it to be able to run according to the specifications. If it overheats when you try to actually use the hardware that's in the box, the manufacturer has a problem.

 

Is there a program for frame-limiting games (besides enabling v-sync)? Or is it only in-built settings on each game?

 

yea well its an ultraportable, and from my experience the cooling is insufficient on it, at least for gaming, but this has a huge effect on battery life, most people probably arent aware they could save so much battery life without an effect on game performance

 

for some, like half life and cs1.6 have fps limiters built into console, im not sure about others, couldnt find one for unreal engine, but like i said speedswitchxp is the fastest way to go about it, although not the most effective, for example i cant set the low-clock level to anything except 800mhz, but i tried it with dx, ss2 and fallout2 so far they all work good at 800mhz, although i noticed a slowdown on dx in some places that wasnt there when running at 2200mhz, but nothing serious, and my laptop runs really ...really cool now

 

@anarky321 , i have the same problem on my laptop ; it has 1280mb Ram , Pentium M 1.73 ghz cpu and intel 915 chipset . The cpu of this machine RUNS always %100 load in all of the games ,newest or oldest games. For example , i play Age of Empires "1" ,the game 10 years old or plus; But te Pentium M 1.73 cpu RUNS at %100 load. So the laptop becomes a FİREBALL.
I stopped the clock at 800 mhz with a hardware control program so it doesnt become a fireball but it USES %100 cpu load in game too . Like yours...
I searched on internet beaucoup . but i couldnt find any argument to solve ours problem.
Why should we do to reduce the usage of the cpu at normal levels?
It is like a "infinite loop" in programming.
I think one of the drivers which is about gaming cause this problem. It may be the driver of game controlling, the sound , Vga etc. But I downloaded the latest versions of all the drivers

 

not only does it keep the CPU cooler, but by limiting cpu cycles your keeping your GPU cooler too since it doesnt have to run at 100% (my fan never turns on full now when gaming, and this is a tiny notebook), before it ran on full fan the whole time the game was on and it was scorching hot air