BeamNG not using cpu, gpu, ram

Performance Issues – Low GPU/CPU Usage & Low FPS Despite Decent Specs

Hey everyone,

I'm running into a frustrating issue where BeamNG just doesn't seem to be utilizing my system properly, and I'm hoping someone here might have some insight.

My system specs:

• CPU: Intel i5-12400F
  
  
• GPU: RTX 2070 Super
  
  
• RAM: 32GB DDR5 4400MHz (XMP not available due to motherboard)
  
  
• Storage: Samsung NVMe SSD
  
  
• Monitor: 144Hz (playing at 1080p)
  

Despite these specs, I'm only getting around 50–60 FPS on high settings, and things get significantly worse if I increase graphics settings or add AI traffic. What's strange is that:

• CPU usage sits around 20%, with only 6 cores being used evenly — the others seem idle.
  
  
• GPU usage is also stuck around 20–30%, barely breaking a sweat.
  
  
• Temps are cool (~50°C for both CPU and GPU).
  
  
• RAM usage is around 16GB, so nothing crazy.
  

It feels like the game is bottlenecking somewhere, but I can't figure out why it's not using more of my available resources to boost performance. I've tried both Vulkan and DirectX modes — no real difference between them.

Is this a known issue with BeamNG? Any tips or tweaks I should try to get the game to utilize my hardware better?

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

There is no issue, try running the game in vulkan to see if it boosts performance. Beam likes high single thread performance and lots of cores with that good single thread performance. That said you GPU is getting a bit old, its basically a combination of a mid range cpu and older gpu, performance seems about right for your hardware

And just for comparison.

I3 13100 with a 4090,



Mid 60s fps while not using vulkan, using vulkan the fps would go up alot because the GPU is very high end
--- Post updated ---
To provide some more information. You have a 6 Performance core 12 thread CPU. It's not bad, but it's also not the fastest CPU in the world

Watching CPU usage overall isn't a good measure of whether or not the CPU cores are being loaded. You need to look at the individual cores.

Here is an example with a Core Ultra 5 225 6 Performance Cores 4 Efficient cores (10 threads total)



The picture on the left is from Automation map running only the player car. You can see that the 4 E-cores on my CPU are idle doing nothing (because they don't need to) where as the 6 performance cores have load ( P core 2 and 6 being used the most)

If you looked at the overall CPU usage though its only at 21% but that isn't really accurate because individual cores are being loaded. The 21% is just the overall (in my case 10 thread) usage.

You can see on the right when I've spawned 40 AI cars how the usage goes up a lot and now all my cores are being used much more.

Now back to your performance. I mentioned before that Beam likes fast single thread performance.

Here is a passmark comparison of the Core Ultra 5 225 CPU and your 12400



Don't worry about the multithread number right now, focus on the single thread score.

Your CPU is 3446 vs my score of 4468. That is a huge difference. Since beam loads up a single core first then starts using other ones, the higher/faster your single thread performance is on your CPU the faster frame rate you will get.

Now I did have a i3 13100 system, look at its passmark single thread score



its 3455 virtually the same score as you. So my i3 13100 is going to have similar performance to your 12400 with only the player vehicle spawned.

Taking that information

Here is some screen shots from West Coast USA, which is a very CPU heavy map.

the 13100 which scores 3455



Its getting 64fps

My 225 which scores 4468



its getting 70fps

My Core Ultra 9 285K which scores 5095



is getting 90fps.

Just an example to highlight, the higher the single thread performance your CPU is, the more FPS you will get in beam.

Now, you had tried vulkan and said no performance increase. With Vulkan providing you have a high end graphics card, you can get much more performance out of the game because vulkan shifts more work to the GPU.

As an example. My 285K with a RTX 5090 only gets around an average of 95fps in west coast USA at 4K ultra, but when I use Vulkan it gets an average of 155fps.

Taking a more extreme example. I have a very old system i7 5775c (with an rtx 4090) which is from 2015. When I use direct 3D it gets around 45-50 fps in West Coast USA at 4K ultra, but when I use vulkan it gets around 80-85fps.

All of this to say is, you system is performing as it should. If you wanted more performance you should look at a GPU upgrade to use Vulkan to get more performance. In terms of current generation cars a 5070Ti or above is what is needed to get a decent bump in performance using vulkan