Home Windows 10 How To Monitor GPU Usage in Windows 10 : Step-By-Step

How To Monitor GPU Usage in Windows 10 : Step-By-Step

Have you ever noticed how much amount of resources your PC is using? While you are playing, working, sitting idle, etc., do you know what resources are being used and want’s to Monitor GPU Usage?

Most of the times whenever our machine runs slow or suddenly stops responding, we tend to start the Task Manager. It is the common tendency in users to frequently check how much of the RAM, Disk, CPU and Network percentage is used by a certain task.

Now let’s just say you are having a good gaming PC or a Laptop and you love gaming. Ever wondered if your game suddenly stops and does not respond to any of the controls? What if your player dies while the other tasks are using the resources which are necessary for you while gaming?

At the time of our research on “How to Monitor GPU Usage in Windows 10 Task Manager”, we found a video about “What is a GPU and how does it work?” which is worth watching. 🏆

What is a GPU and how does it work? - Gary explains

Since there is no way to monitor GPU usage in Windows 10, here is how you can monitor GPU usage in Windows 10 using Task Manager. This feature is most useful not only while gaming but also when you are using applications like photo editors and video editors too. In short, for all those applications which require a good amount of GPU resources.

How to monitor GPU usage in Windows 10

To use this feature, first of all, your PC should have a Graphics Card and should be WDDM (Windows Display Driver Model) 2.0 compatible.

WDDM is the graphics driver architecture for video card/graphics card running in a Windows machine. To know what version your GPU supports, you can simply check by using DirectX Diagnostics Tool.

Press Windows key + R on your keyboard.

Type dxdiag and press enter. The DirectX Diagnostics Tool will open up. Click on the Display tab.

How To Monitor GPU Usage in Windows 10 : Step-By-Step

In the Drivers section check Driver Model. If it says WDDM 2.xx or above then your GPU usage is readily available in Task Manager.

If it says WDDM 1.xx then your GPU is either not responding or not compatible with your version of Windows 10.

Note:- I have written a post for people looking for the task manager alternative on Windows 10?, do read it If you are interested.

Moving towards how to monitor GPU processes and usage. Make sure that your PC is currently working fine and not in a freezing state. It is necessary because sometimes when your machine is working with overloaded work, even Task Manager won’t start.

  1. Press Windows key + R on your keyboard.Monitor GPU usage in Windows 10
  2. Type taskmgr and press enter. The Task Manager will open up.
  3. Click on More Details to open up all the processes window.Monitor GPU usage in Windows 10
  4. In the Processes tab, right click on any of the matrix i.e., CPU or Memory and select GPU and GPU Engine.Monitor GPU usage in Windows 10

The above steps will give you the proper GPU usage of every application and the GPU engine used by it.

Monitor GPU usage in Windows 10

If you wish to check the complete usage graph of the GPU processes and usage, just click on Performance Tab and list of matrices will open up with their graphical representations.

Note:- I have written a post for people looking for the best laptop for architecture students, do read it If you are interested.

Here you will find more than one GPU entries. One is for the inbuilt GPU provided by Intel and another one will be your installed GPU.

Monitor GPU usage in Windows 10

To check how much video memory a certain application is consuming, check the Details tab.

  1. Click on the Details Tab.
  2. Right click on any of the header names i.e., Name, PID or Status. Then select the option Select Columns.Monitor GPU usage in Windows 10
  3. Check all the checkbox named as GPU, GPU Engine, Dedicated GPU Memory, and Shared GPU Memory.Monitor GPU usage in Windows 10

Here you go, now you can monitor all the process hampering GPU anytime you want.

Monitor GPU usage in Windows 10

Its just that, the GPU column which we just checked in Details Tab hides away as soon as the Task Manager is closed. You may need to perform the process we did just above again.

Note:- I have written a post for people looking for the task manager shortcut?, do read it If you are interested.