Vista's insane idle CPU usage causing bad performance?

[XxDeadlyxX]

Ok Vista seems to have totally erratic idle CPU usage for me, even if absolutely nothing is running, it will be lucky to dip under 8%. It is completely random applications too, such as explorer, various svchost's etc each using about 2-3%, for about a second then another application takes its place. And no, it is not a virus as this is a clean install and it has always been like this on Vista for me.

I am starting to think this may be the cause for my weird performance in CSS. Using ALchemy instead of the default non-hardware accelerated sound and getting rid of the sidebar improved the smoothness somewhat. However, the performance, even at 640x480, absolute minimum details, is weird. For example, no matter what the settings, the fps will be a stable 70-80 when not much is going on, however when I look somewhere with a big draw distance such as through the mid double doors on dust2, it will instantly dip into 40s or lower. Also any enemies on the screen make it bad.

XP on the other hand stays at 0% CPU usage a majority of the time. I have NEVER seen Vista on 0%. I am pretty sure this is part of the problem of my stuttery and poor performing CSS.

I am using the newest Nvidia 158.45 and Creative's newest X-Fi driver. Funnily enough, it performs almost exactly the same as it did in the 9x.xx Vista drivers, which backs up the fact it performs nearly the same at 640x480 minimum settings as 1920x1200 maximum settings.

Any thoughts?

[j0j081]

I think something is very wrong with CS:S in Vista. I started a thread about it a couple of weeks ago but nobody seemed to have any idea. In the video stress test I get about half the fps I do in XP x64 and although at times in game like on Dust2 as you mentioned the fps should be reasonable enough to play in certain areas or whenever some action takes place there is a huge dip making it more or less unplayable on this system. With a faster computer it might be less noticable. To begin with I thought maybe it was just my system and games on Vista in general but my 3dmark06 score is almost identical to that of XP and a couple other games I've tried on Vista have worked fine as well.

[XxDeadlyxX]

I think something is very wrong with CS:S in Vista. I started a thread about it a couple of weeks ago but nobody seemed to have any idea. In the video stress test I get about half the fps I do in XP x64 and although at times in game like on Dust2 as you mentioned the fps should be reasonable enough to play in certain areas or whenever some action takes place there is a huge dip making it more or less unplayable on this system. With a faster computer it might be less noticable. To begin with I thought maybe it was just my system and games on Vista in general but my 3dmark06 score is almost identical to that of XP and a couple other games I've tried on Vista have worked fine as well.

Yep exactly, people with dual core probably dont notice the constant CPU usage and us with single core cop it. I dunno though, this seems way too bad to be just because we have single core.

Also whenever I open up Game Explorer CPU usage skyrockets to constant 50-100%? :eek2:

Here's what I always see in Task Manager, notice the multiple processes chewing up 2% of CPU for no reason.

http://aycu30.webshots.com/image/17589/2005243647585259015_rs.jpg

Do you also get this?

[Belarnion]

That's strange.
This is how CPU usage looks like on my system.
I see 0% usage most of the time with a few peaks between 1-2%.
http://img362.imageshack.us/img362/4091/untitled1er7.jpg

[nekrosoft13]

you using 32bit vista? why 3gb ram?

[Belarnion]

you using 32bit vista? why 3gb ram?
3GB because I've lent a friend of mine 1 of the sticks.

[XxDeadlyxX]

After installing all the Windows Updates (not sure if it was related to this though), the Games Explorer CPU problem is gone, and overall CPU usage now hovers from 2-7%. Sometimes higher though. Also occasionally it hits 0% which it didn't before. Hmmmmm.....

[XxDeadlyxX]

Ok I'm not exactly sure what did it, but CSS performance is quite a bit better now. Still not exactly XP level, but the massive performance dips seem to be gone :) I would say it's actually playable.

I installed the June 2007 DirectX update, then played some Halo 2. Halo 2 performed pretty good for my setup (not perfect but WAY better than how CSS was performing before), so then I loaded up CSS and voila it performs decent now.

So anyone with the same problem I would strongly recommend downloading the June 2007 DirectX update. May not be the cause of the improvement, but I didnt really do anything else inbetween.

[j0j081]

k I will try that dx update and see if anything changes. I already had all the Vista updates installed and don't seem to have the idle problem you had.