100% CPU with Aero turned off

Visual, Game & Mobile Development OpenGL
#1

Hi, I have this problem on my Win 7 computer (remember 5% of the global install base is still on Win 7) where if I disable Aero (which I have to othervise OBS won’t stream at acceptable framerates) when I start my OpenGL game nvoglv32.dll is calling D3DKMTESCAPE in gdi.dll at 100% CPU until I increase load, then this separate thread stops wasting CPU for nothing.

Is this even legal, to burn other peoples CPU high like that for nothing?

#2

Ok, nobody here cares about this it seems… great community you got here Nvidia!

#3

Hi @marc2,

I am currently looking for an OpenGL resource to help here in the developer forums. In the meantime, I suggest posting to the GeForce forums. There might be someone there that has experience with OpenGL.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/forums/discover/

Thanks,
Tom

#4

Hi @marc2,

I received some feedback on your issue. Unfortunately, Win 7 is EOL and not supported anymore. I wish I could have helped you.

Best of luck,
Tom

#5

Please take a minute to consider what you are saying; This bug is currently wasting 10 watts of opportunity for every computer that runs Win 7 for nothing except heat! Steam has 90 million users of which ~5% still use Win 7; 4x months after EOL, that’s 4 million users!

If you look at median playtime for Steam it is exploding (the numbers for 2020 will be off the charts!); we play fewer games for longer: 4 min (447,200,000 copies = 1.7B) in 2016, 7 min (263,300,000 copies = 1.8B) in 2018 to 17 min (167,800,000 copies = 2.8B ) in 2019, and that’s only for new titles! (https://steamspy.com/year/)

By brushing off this as a flaw, you are not giving gamedevs. the incitement to build games that don’t take full advantage of the power they can use!

There are four lessons you can draw from this;

  1. Win 7 is never going away! EVER! Until electricity becomes expensive, which it will eventually and probably by alot!
  2. Your waste is probably not going down, because as people stop using Win 7 they also play more compensating for the Win 7 dropoff!
  3. The opportunity cost is huge, I would say many nuclear power plants. The way you brush this off is sad for all kids on the planet. The debt nvidia has by letting the drivers churn the CPU like this for over 10 years is just incalculable.
  4. Raspberry Pi will eat your lunch in the ARMs race because they understand the value of low power better.

Good luck!