Is it possible to redirect some GPU load to CPU (In games)?

I have a laptop of a relatively weak GPU (GTX 950M, 2Gb DDR3), but with rather powerful quad core CPU (i7 6300HQ), and plenty of memory (DDR4 16Gb).

I noticed that most games uses GPU to its full capability, however my CPU goes 25% maximum (eg. Crysis 3, gives 25-30 fps on high settings HD).

I wonder if there is any way to throw some load from GPU to CPU, is that possible to be done on user level? or it is a matter of game optimization?

P.S I bought the laptop for performance not for gaming. However, it happened that games are also irresistible :)

TMS

Posted 2017-03-26T12:26:50.987

Reputation: 111

There would be no benefit in offloading a task specifically designed for a GPU to a processor not designed for it. Your CPU would bog down rapidly if asked to shift & skin tris as fast as your GPU can. – Tetsujin – 2017-03-26T12:35:58.690

Yes I am aware of that, but I thought that they should help each other more effectively. – TMS – 2017-03-26T12:39:27.990

... they already will be doing, to the best of the ability of each. – Tetsujin – 2017-03-26T12:41:41.490

Your CPU core is maxed out. See if you can make the games run on more than one cores. This has to be done in the game itself. If you can manage to do that, you've got what you want. – LPChip – 2017-03-26T13:08:15.023

– Mokubai – 2017-03-26T14:09:55.577

Answers

Short answer: No! Not, unless the game itself supports offloading to CPU.

GPU load is incredibly different from, say, network traffic! (It is a common practice to distribute network traffic among several servers in a cluster.) The architecture of GTX 950 microprocessor is utterly different from that of an Intel Core i7-6300. What makes sense to your GPU is utter junk for your CPU.

user477799

Posted 2017-03-26T12:26:50.987

Reputation:

GPU tasks are highly redundant and parallel while CPU tasks tend to be highly complex but sequential. This means, as Fleet Command already mentioned, tasks for the GPU would run poorly on a CPU and vice versa, especially in video games. Additionally, there's no way to force a GPU to dump its workload onto the CPU because it's the CPU that tells the GPU what to execute. These are tasks that are specifically designed to be executed by a GPU alone. Even if you don't have a dedicated graphics card the CPU will execute these tasks on the integrated GPU. So, short answer is: No way.

Red744

Posted 2017-03-26T12:26:50.987

Reputation: 13