element-hq / element-hq/element-web

Causing high CPU on the SYSTEM process

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#32,113 3 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
A-Electron A-Performance O-Uncommon S-Major T-Defect
Dominant language
TypeScript
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Description

### Steps to reproduce

1. Have a laptop with an Intel IGP and a discrete Nvidia GPU
2. Up-to-date drivers, default settings

Now notice how Element, when started, causes about 10% of CPU usage (probably around-or-about full blast on 1 CPU thread) on the SYSTEM process, about 5-10 seconds after having started it.

3. Quit Element

Give it 5-10 seconds, and notice how the CPU uasge on the SYSTEM process settles towards 0%

4. Go into the Nvidia control panel and set it like this:

![image](https://github.com/element-hq/element-web/assets/152227/e2addba6-c47e-417a-a670-84833c006fce)
Leave everything on the list of features untouched. Also don't forget to hit Apply.

5. Start Element back up, and observe CPU usage on the SYSTEM process again. It should have settled back towards 0%.

Element is the only electron-like application of several, on my pc, that causes this, so it doesn't really matter what other software you should or shouldn't run.

### Outcome

#### What did you expect?

It shouldn't cause CPU usage like that at all. It's *extremely* difficult to diagnose, and still also very tricky to track down by process of elimination. Maybe Element shouldn't *ever* trigger discrete GPU activation - no other desktop software is doing that, unless it's an actually graphics-demanding program, which I think we can agree Element isn't.

#### What happened instead?

High CPU usage on the SYSTEM process. Probably full blast on 1 core/thread.

### Operating system

Windows 10

### Application version

Element version: 1.11.58 Crypto version: Olm 3.2.15

### How did you install the app?

_No response_

### Homeserver

_No response_

### Will you send logs?

Yes

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Assessment

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