Sons of the Forest is a sequel to an acclaimed survival game and the moment it dropped, tons of players swarmed to play it on their systems. There is so much population ready to play this game that even Steam crashed in the window it was launched.
Since so many players and all types of machines are experiencing this game, there is a discussion brewing that the game is somehow underutilizing users’ GPU. Why does Sons of the Forest have such a low GPU usage for many? Let us find out.
Sons of the Forest seems to be highly unoptimized at the time of writing this article. This is the reason why many players are reporting lower GPU usage complaints. The game is still in early access so expect it to get better over time.
Sons of the Forest – System Requirements
Before we commence this GPU usage discussion, make sure you meet the system requirements for the game. Many modern games are demanding such a heavy system from the get-go that players with lower-end PCs are suffering greatly.
Minimum System Requirement:
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: 64-bit Windows 10
- Processor: INTEL CORE I5-8400 or AMD RYZEN 3 3300X
- Memory: 12 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB or AMD Radeon RX 570 4GB
- DirectX: Version 11
- Storage: 20 GB available space
- Additional Notes: SSD (Preferred)
Recommended System Requirements:
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: 64-bit Windows 10
- Processor: INTEL CORE I7-8700K or AMD RYZEN 5 3600X
- Memory: 16 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 1080Ti or AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT
- DirectX: Version 11
- Storage: 20 GB available space
- Additional Notes: SSD (Preferred)
If you can meet these requirements then good for you. However, players with adequate systems are still facing GPU usage issues. Why is that?
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Why Is There Low GPU Usage In Sons Of The Forest?
First and foremost, we need to establish that this game is in early access which entails the game is still undergoing development. Most features and optimization is bound to be worked on by the developers or the developers are working on them as we speak. You can expect the experience to get better as time progresses.
Coming to the topic at hand, why is Sons of the Forest not utilizing the GPU completely? The simple answer to this is that the game is not properly optimized for most systems right now. The benchmarks of the game suggest there are both CPU and GPU bottlenecks, which seem highly unlikely since there would be an evident affected single area.
Players are using cutting-edge systems with RTX 4080s and they are still getting lower FPS count like 60 to 70. Their benchmarks are showing 50% to 60% utilization for both CPU and GPU. No matter whether you tweak the graphics settings to lower or ultra, the problem seems to persist. This game is quite CPU intensive also and that could lead to lower GPU usage as well.
It can all be boiled down to the game’s unoptimized build right now. The ball is in the developer’s court and we just have to wait and watch when they make things better.
The game’s early access status seems to be the main culprit to this GPU low usage problem. We can not blame the game entirely as it is the nature of the early-access beast. We can only hope that they solve this issue swiftly. You can check this Steam Sons of the Forest discussion to help you accept this reality and know that players with much higher-end systems are in the same boat as you.