Low FPS on a high end iMac Pro

[kartikthapar]

Your system information

• System Information: https://gist.github.com/kartikthapar/4bf3071bc18c84ec6a44c59202664b1d
• Have you checked for system updates?: On Latest Steam. Not using Catalina.
• Are you using the latest stable video driver available for your system? IDK
• Have you verified the game files?: IDK

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

Game runs in low FPS overall. With the highest settings, I am barely managing 30-35fps. Further, with "fastest" settings. I manage 40-50fps. This has been the case for more than a year.

On my old Mac Pro, with the fastest settings, I could easily run 55-65fps.

Another piece of important information: At some point a year back, something was configured in a way that with the highest settings possible, I was getting a frame rate of 110fps. Not sure what happened here.

I have tried using Vulcan and there is no change.

---

Other notes:

• Upgraded to Catalina. Same behavior.
• Even besides the game itself, the UI is extremely choppy through. Navigation, animation, particle effects everything in the UI feel very choppy in general.
• Tested Counter Strike on High settings and I am getting 100-200fps on average with FPS drops in new scenes (but very momentarily).

[kartikthapar]

Alright, I did a bunch of testing here and here are the results.

1. I reduced from 36 cores to 2 cores and suddenly Dota went from 30fps on high to ~60fps & 40fps to 110-120fps on fastest.
2. Dota 2 is heavily using CPU. Its almost always at 100% utilization.
3. Dota 2 is not using GPU to its capacity. Most of the times its around 30-35% utilizations and using skills creates massive spikes where GPU utilization becomes 100% momentarily.

I wonder where the problem is but it feels like Dota is misusing both CPU and GPU which is resulting in a very low fps on high end machines.

[kartikthapar]

Can anybody follow up?

[olddonkey]

+1 for the issue, I am also looking for a solution

[olddonkey]

@kartikthapar How did you reduce the cores? I am also with 18 core CPU with 36 threads.

[kartikthapar]

Not at my machines right now but checkout preferences in Instruments. There is an option to reduce cores there.

[olddonkey]

Thanks, you mean instruments in Xcode?

[kartikthapar]

Yes.

[olddonkey]

Thanks so much!

I tried different options, seems 8 core without hyper threading works best.

[kartikthapar]

Its kind of disturbing no one is acknowledging this. Can a lead at least acknowledge the issue?

[zubair-farooqui]

I face the same issue on my Macbook PRO 2019 but it was because of the incorrect charging port. I moved my charging port from left to right to solve the issue for me.

REF: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/363337/how-to-find-cause-of-high-kernel-task-cpu-usage