Slow performance? / GPU utilization

[mia64]

🐢 Slow performance? / GPU utilization

🧾 Description

I’m using a 2x batch image upscaling feature with the Remacri model on 1920×1080 JPG images.

The process feels slower than expected. it takes about 65 seconds per image.

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🖥️ System setup

• GPU: RTX 3060 12GB
• CPU: Intel i5-12600
• RAM: 32GB DDR4
• Storage: NVMe SSD

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⚙️ Configuration

• GPU ID manually set to RTX 3060
• Windows power plan adjusted for performance
• Testing with 1 instance and also 3 parallel instances (by duplicating the program folder)

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📊 Observed behavior

Even when running 3 instances in parallel:

• Each instance still takes ~65 seconds per image

System usage during parallel run:

• GPU usage: ~10%
• CPU usage: ~27%
• RAM usage: ~45%
• SSD usage: ~0–1%

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❓ Question

Is this expected behavior or a limitation of the program/model?

Is there any way to better utilize my hardware to improve processing speed?

Any insights would be appreciated.

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📝 Note

My English writing skills are not very strong, so I used ChatGPT to help structure this message.

[dosubot[bot]]

Hi @mia64! I'm Dosu and I'm helping the Upscayl team.

With an RTX 3060 12GB, ~65 seconds per 1080p image at 2x with Remacri does seem slower than expected, and the very low GPU usage (~10%) strongly suggests Upscayl may be falling back to software/CPU rendering instead of properly using your GPU.

First, verify your GPU is actually being used:

1. Set Upscayl to "High performance" in Windows Settings → System → Display → Graphics Settings → add Upscayl and set it to High Performance [1]
2. Enable hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling in Windows 11 display settings [1]
3. Set GPU ID to 0 in Upscayl settings to force discrete GPU usage [1]
4. Check for conflicting Vulkan software — programs like Bandicam can install conflicting Vulkan DLLs that interfere with GPU detection [1]
5. Clean reinstall NVIDIA drivers using DDU if the above doesn't help [1]

Other speed optimizations:

• Increase tile size — Try setting tile size to 512 or 640 in settings. Since you have 12GB VRAM, you can afford larger tiles which reduce overhead from processing too many small chunks [2]. The tile size is passed to the binary via the -t flag [3].
• Disable TTA mode if it's enabled — TTA significantly slows processing in exchange for slightly better quality [4].
• Try a lighter model — Remacri is a good model but some alternatives may process faster with acceptable quality [2].

The ~10% GPU utilization is the biggest red flag here. Once your GPU is properly utilized, you should see much faster processing times on an RTX 3060 with 12GB VRAM.

To reply, just mention @dosu.

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Docs are dead. Just use Dosu.

[mia64]

Thank you for the fast reply! I will follow your guide and reply back with the results.

[mia64]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I followed your guide and got good results so far

What I did:

• Set Upscayl to "High performance"
  already set

• Enable hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling
  I'm using Windows 10, but I checked online and found how to enable it

• Set GPU ID to 0
  Already set.

• Check for conflicting Vulkan software
  To my knowledge, there aren't any programs running in the background except Firefox.

• Clean reinstall NVIDIA drivers using DDU
  Done. I followed this YouTube guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8OLhUAPDq

• Increase tile size
  This seems to have made the biggest difference.
  However, tile sizes 620 and 640 produce the following error:

• Because of that, I switched to 512, which worked.

• Disable TTA mode
  Already disabled by default.

• Try a lighter model
  I tested some lighter models and they do run faster,
  but I prefer the output quality of Remacri, so I stayed with it.

Results

The processing time dropped from about 65 seconds per image to roughly 10 seconds per image when using the Remacri model for a 2x upscale of a 1920×1080 JPG image, and the GPU usage reaches 98–100%.

The GPU fans become very loud and the card seems to be under heavy load as a result. For now, I'll continue testing and may try a tile size of 256 to see whether it is more stable while still providing good performance.

Running multiple Upscayl instances is no longer possible because of the GPU usage, and attempting to do so causes Windows to crash with a blue screen.

Bugs?

• With the above setting the program not counting the files currently but the logs are showing the two images being prossesed at the same time if I read it right. (not sure if this is intended or not)

Thanks for the help!