CPU usage dropped to 5% during Gaming after installing Win 11 22H2 update causing huge lag

Question

Got the 22H2 update for win 11 this morning and my games immediately started to lag.. Using MSI afterburner I found that in games (BFV and NFS Heat) my cpu usage had dropped from around 50-60% to only 5 % it was the same in all of my games. They all ran perfectly yesterday. Rolled back the update and the games are running perfectly again using 50-60% cpu.

Why would this Windows 11 update do this to my new 6 week old gaming PC?

Im using i7 10700cpu and a 3070 video card along with 32g of ram

Answer 1

I reckon FearOuttsider had it right in his earlier posts. MS must have changed how Win11 calculates the cpu use with this update.

I haven't had any issues with frame rates since doing the 22H2 update (third time lucky. First two caused other issues with games),
and was not aware of this low cpu thing until reading this thread, so I did a brief test with three games

(Cyberpunk 2077, BFV & Shadow of the Tomb Raider).

I normally use a cpu use monitor on my Logitech G13's LCD panel, which now shows 1-3 % cpu use (Shadow of the Tomb Raider w\ RTX3080
using Ray Tracing @ 4K (DSR) averaging mid 70's fps ).
I had always thought the data for the LCD panel was taken from the Windows Task Manager cpu monitor.
Apparently not. The cpu use monitor in Task Manager shows SoTR pushing my Intel 12600K into the upper 50's and

Cyberpunk 2077 is pushing 60+ cpu use.
Pretty much the same fps I recall from tests done after building this system and first installing Win11 a few months ago.

This seems to indicate MS changed the method Win11 uses to measure cpu usage and that reflects in Task Manager, but not the Logitech

LCD panel, possibly due to it using old drivers (or other code) that are getting no updates ?

Similar third party tools produced by MSI and others may not have caught up with this change yet either.

• On the subject of games being affected by Win11...

I have 26 games that do not, or no longer, launch on Win11 since before the 22H2 update. This is across all platforms; disc, Steam, EPIC, etc.

The 22H2 update may have increased that by one (NFS-Underground), but I may not have tested it prior to 22H2.
A few of the more prominent fails currently are... Skyrim, Fallout New Vegas (FO3 is fine though), Batman Arkham Origins,

Dishonored (Dis 2 is fine), MOH Warfighter, and LA Noir.

The games listed above are all linked to Steam, EA, and Rockstar, but are the disc based versions. However, reinstalling from Steam\EA didn't help.

Interestingly, Batman Arkham City failed to launch on Steam, but I installed it via EPIC (part of a Bats giveaway) and it launched with no issues,

so it looks like Win11's hyper sensitive security may have an issue with disc based games that are linked to the various on line retailers.

btw - I only 'lost' five games due to the OS moving from Win7>10, and because Win11 is really only Win10 with more extreme security.

Particularly with the new cpu\motherboards. I've tried the many tricks and tweaks, such as using core parking with my i5 12600K, but

nothing has worked, so at the moment all that is left to point the finger at is this new Win11 security regime.

.

Answer 2

Solved with the new version of MSI After.

https://download.msi.com/uti_exe/vga/MSIAfterburnerSetup.zip?__token__=exp=1666245102~acl=/*~hmac=7813b98eed1bdb190862d55fd4c98c7e919b78181b8856f6975dd8005de6c45f

Answer 3

I have uninstalled GeForce Experience and left only the Nvidia driver. I have played Valorant and looks fine now. CPU usage is still low in MSI Afterburner.

Answer 4

I bring good news! Yesterday, I got in touch with Microsoft support regarding the CPU usage report bug and they told me the Windows developers team is aware and working on it! I was told to expect a fixing patch within 2 to 3 days (I imagine it will come through Windows Update, as usual). Last night, I also got the same KB5017389 update with hopes it would be the one bringing the awaited fix, but it wasn't the case. Anyway, we now need only wait. They know about the issue, we're covered.

Answer 5

Same here. Got the 22H2 update today, and now msi afterburner shows only 3% to 5% CPU usage at all times while gaming. This is not effecting fps though, the CPU is actually working as it should, and the task manager shows the correct CPU usage around 60% 70% as usual. For me, It's only the on-screen display from msi afterburner that is now broken after this stupid update. Tried reinstalling everything that can be even remotely related to this issue, and nothing. Not gonna bother with rolling back the update for now, cause it's not causing performance issues for me, at least not on Cyberpunk, Metro Exodus, GTA V and Death Stranding, these are the only games I tried, and performance was not an issue. Hope this gets fixed soon, cause I rely on the on-screen display to see if my CPU is causing a bottleneck.