High GPU Usage on new session, no objects in it

[Anonymous]

I have a GTX 660 GPU and i7 3770 CPU.

When opening 3ds Max i get always a constant 30% usage on GPU, without doing anything else at all. Why is this happening? What can i do to alleviate this? I know that 3ds is a pretty intricate program and it loads up so much stuff. But why is the GPU affected so much? I can't believe that 3DS Max is SOO taxing on the system when doing it is idle!

Any help appreciated. Thanks in advance!

[RobH2]

That does sound somewhat high. 3D programs are by definition going the be the most taxing things your machine will ever see. So don't be surprised to see abnormally high readings compared to almost any other kind of software you run. 

How are you determining the GPU load, meaning, what's showing you that 30% load? Sometimes software sensors for these kinds of things can be incorrect. I have a very high-end mother board and two of the MBs temp sensors have readouts of over 99C all the time. I know by doing other temp measurements that the board is running cool. So I've learned not to trust sensors all the time. But initially, I was alarmed and worried I was burning up the board somehow. 

I just opened Max 2018 and put a few objects in a scene. I use 'TechPowerUp GPU-Z' to monitor GPU usage. With an interactive render frame open in Corona, as I pan around, I get between 2% and 12% usage. So your 30% does seem a bit much especially for an empty scene. I might recommend you try a few different programs to read your GPU usage and cross-reference them. If you get lower GPU readings on some of them, then maybe you can infer that your initial readings were really not correct. If you get the same high readings on all, you might want to write Nvidia or at least completely uninstall and reinstall your video drivers. 

[Anonymous]

I mainly use process explorer (x64) to get the readings. It works perfectly, fully tested. I know 3d programs are taxing. But with a scene completely empty and the program IDLE it shouldn't be 30%. I use 3ds Max 2017 student's edition. My system is fully clean and maintained, i assure you.

[RobH2]

I understand. Yea, these kinds of issues can be tricky to trace. That usage does not sound right so I'd reach out to tech support. They are pretty good. Hopefully they can help you figure it out. 

[Anonymous]

I have also installed for some time now 3DS Max 2015 student's edition. It seems to do a far better job than 3DS Max 2017 equivalent version. 3ds 2015 doesn't use the GPU unless i manipulate geometry, do animation, rendering etc. Which is what should happen on 3DS Max 2017. It seems like the devs omitted this in 2017. How could they? 3DS Max 2015's interface and mechanisms are very similar to 2017 overall and now i definitely prefer it. I wonder what they have done with 2018. If you see this, then you should definitely fix the constant GPU usage problem (it IS a problem; you can't constantly bother GPU resources unless you use them).