How to increase GPU/CPU usage?

[SkyDaz]

I've noticed when playing the game, my GPU and CPU almost never go above 20% usage even if my frames start to dip. I don't know if its because this game is mainly memory based or not but if anybody know some way to make it so my GPU/CPU put in a little more effort I'd like to know. Also, if the game is mainly memory based, is there any way to increase how much memory the game uses or is it just set to use as much as it needs by default?

[Thorfinn]

Welcome to the forums, @SkyDaz

The two most common causes IME are memory and storage. Not all MBs treat all the memory the same way. One machine I have works well until it starts using the second bank of RAM, and it doesn't really matter which modules are in which slots. Turns out it's an undocumented "feature" of the MB. To keep it's blazing 1st bank numbers, it nerfs 2nd bank operations.

SSDs, even worse. There are some units out there with way too little cache, They work great until that fills, then throughput drops significantly, with some of the lower end SSD dropping to 1% of nameplate specs.

How much of your RAM is in use? How much of your SSD is free? Is your SSD  outrunning cache? Do you have a way to monitor those while playing?

Are you heavily modded? If you are filling up your atlas, some machines will drag. Badly. Are you running anything else, especially a browser, that would suck up RAM?

 

[Hal13]

I'm just spitballing but maybe it helps.

On 5/26/2025 at 5:27 AM, SkyDaz said:

or is it just set to use as much as it needs by default?

afaik it's set to use as little memory as it can without impacting performance.

 

On 5/26/2025 at 5:27 AM, SkyDaz said:

my GPU and CPU almost never go above 20% usage even if my frames start to dip

In which circumstances does the framerate drop? Loading already generated, but unused for longer times, chunks? Take a look at your SSD/HDD, like Thorfinn mentioned, playing from a SSD with too little cache could be the problem, or corrupted sectors/data loss. playing dozens of hours in a single session? that's an optimize RAM problem I had, relogging fixes it, the default and highest RAM usage is "optimize somewhat" under the optimize RAM setting.

 

On 5/26/2025 at 5:27 AM, SkyDaz said:

some way to make it so my GPU/CPU put in a little more effort I'd like to know.

On 5/26/2025 at 5:27 AM, SkyDaz said:

is there any way to increase how much memory the game uses

cranking up the settings to max (increases mostly GPU usages), using mods and/or increase world height (potentially more CPU and memory usage); but i somehow doubt that's what you really wanted to know.