Battlefield 3 Suddenly Has Low GPU Usage

I really hate to make another thread about BF3 but I haven't been able to find anything that points to an issue after an hour or so of googling/trying things out. I only got the game recently, and ever since I installed it everything has been great. (i.e. max settings, great FPS, 99% GPU usage.) Just a few days ago, however, my GPU usage in-game has plummeted; I now average about 20-30% utilization in pretty much any map I try. (This obviously results in abysmal FPS.) I thought this was strange but thought it might be a multiplayer thing. Nope, I started the campaign and the same thing is happening. Stranger still not one of my other games (Skyrim, Borderlands 2, etc) is affected in the slightest. (UPDATE: After I started writing this, I checked Battlefield Bad Company 2 and while usage seems a little low, like 70-80%, I'm still getting 60+ FPS so it's not that big of an issue.)

I could see this happening if I had recently updated drivers, or something else like that but no, I haven't done anything with my drivers since I installed the 12.11p drivers when they came out. Just for kicks, I uninstalled/reinstalled CCC and the display driver to see if that would help but alas, no good.

Anyone with the 7970m in an Enduro-enabled Clevo have this happen to them recently? Could it just be something with BF3 and it needs to be uninstalled/reinstalled? (I hope not as it takes me like 5 days to download all the patches/expansions.) Since only BF3 seems to be affected, I have a feeling it could just be the game, but I just wanted to double check with the Clevo community to see if there was something obvious I missed/overlooked.

Thanks in advance!

 

Low GPU usage can be a symptom of low CPU clocks/throttling (it feeds the GPU so if its slow you wont use much of your GPU)

 

That seems reasonable, but OP mentioned it ran fine at first - and that other games don't experience the under utilization.

OP: Though you might not want to hear this, I would like to know if the game does it after a re-install. It could be a recent patch to the game that is causing the problem.

 

yes, im pretty sure it is the recent patch.

without an update, i can get my full 99% usage throughout single player.

 

Ah, then it looks like you'll have to give the programmers time to patch it - or see if a new device driver is released first (doubt it). You can visit ask the community to see if anybody knows of a workaround:

Forums - Battlelog / Battlefield 3

 

Ah I should have figured... never saw it update but maybe it did and I just overlooked it. Thanks for the assistance guys, I'll see what I can find over in Battlefield's area.

 

I ran into issues on only Karkand maps because my CPU wouldn't turbo when playing BF3. So i had to get Throttlestop to help the min fps.