This is absurd! The ROON windows app draws about 80 to 90W using my GPU.

[ironhorse128]

I recently noticed that my PC was consuming a significant amount power. I found out that the problem is the roon windows app (not the server, just the windows client), which draws about 80 watts using my GPU.

If I close the windows app my computer needs about 60W (measured with Shelly Plug via Home Assistant). If the windows app is open and playing a song, then the computer's power consumption increases to 150W. You can see this in the history in Home Assistant.

Via the program HWiNFO64 you can see the increased power consumption (“GPU Energieverbrauch” 15.5 W vs 71.9W) of the GPU (RTX 3080).

The roon server runs on a Linux server with a small library of about 20k titles. The music is streaming directly to a Google Chromecast Audio. So the computer actually has nothing to do with the music playback.

I think this is absolutely absurd that the Roon Windows App costs me 80W to 90W of power not doing anything.

Does anyone know about this phenomenon? You can check for yourself using the HWiNFO64 program. You can see directly that the GPU needs extremely much power as soon as the Roon Windows application is open and plays a song.


EDIT:
There are some reports on the roonlabs forum about high GPU usage with the roon app.

Roon 1.8 use a lot of GPU when the animation icon of playing can be seen

Roon version 1.8 (build 970) stable, on a mbp 19’ I found roon use all of GPU resources when playing, and the playing animation is moving. I found that it only happened when the icon is in viewport.

community.roonlabs.com

macOS Catalina interface laggy randomly while running Roon (High GPU usage randomly, Roon idle 20% GPU, sometimes up to 99% usage) [Resolved in Roon 1.8]

Hi @mavmcl, I had a chance to discuss this case further with QA and they have confirmed that they’re able to reproduce this behavior in the lab again, thanks for the secondary desktop suggestion . We have a theory regarding OpenGL as to what might be causing this, and we’re investigating this...

community.roonlabs.com

Roon 2.0 interface unusable on Windows 10 (Xeon CPU / Nvidia FX580 GPU)

Thanks for your reply Robert. My PC does have OpenGL 3.3 installed and running. Is this version of OpenGL compatible with Roon? I don’t have another PC or laptop I can try at this time. I admit, my computer is getting a little long in the tooth but it does run Windows 10 and every other program...

community.roonlabs.com

 

[staticV3]

I suspect that 72W is just your RTX3080's minimum consumption while performing any task, so any App that uses hardware acceleration for basic functions will have the same result.

That's really not Roon's fault though. You just have a very powerful GPU that draws a lot of current at idle.

That also makes your poll kind of pointless as every GPU will have a different idle current draw, which has nothing to do with the work being done. Basically, you're not asking "Whose Roon client is drawing how much power?", but "How much power does your GPU need to sustain operation?".

You can try disabling hardware acceleration in Roon and that should keep your GPU in standby.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

Do you have MSI Afterburner or similar OC program running? -I suspect your GPU isn't downclocking as it should and is running at its peak frequency at all time. My 3060Ti idles around 30 W or so but at low frequency when it's not demanded.

 

[ironhorse128]

Thanks for your reply's.

I have tons of apps open all the time. 50 browser taps, Excel, Word, Intellij IDEA, docker containers, a DB tool, VS Code, PDF reader and so on. None of these programs cause this kind of power draw from the GPU.

Look when I am actively working I have 60W. But when the roon app is open then 150W if I am working or not. That is not normal.

No there is no MSI afterburner or any similar program.

@Holdt: Do you have roon? Can you verify this behavior with cour rtx 3060ti?

@Holdt: I checked the screenshots from HWiNFO64. The GPU is running at high frequency when the roon app is open. This matches the GPU power draw. But an app should just not do that when there is nothing to do.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

Thanks for your reply's.

I have tons of apps open all the time. 50 browser taps, Excel, Word, Intellij IDEA, docker containers, a DB tool, VS Code, PDF reader and so on. None of these programs cause this kind of power draw from the GPU.

Look when I am actively working I have 60W. But when the roon app is open then 150W if I am working or not. That is not normal.

No there is no MSI afterburner or any similar program.

@Holdt: Do you have roon? Can you verify this behavior with cour rtx 3060ti?

@Holdt: I checked the screenshots from HWiNFO64. The GPU is running at high frequency when the roon app is open. This matches the GPU power draw. But an app should just not do that when there is nothing to do.

50 browser taps sounds excessive. In Chrome you can disable hardware acceleration. -Try that?

No, I don't have Roon. Is there a HW acc. toggle in the Roon settings?

 

[ironhorse128]

@Holdt: Where is this HW acc. toggle in the roon app. I looked twice at all option. In which setting menu?

My chrome tabs do not cause any trouble.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

@Holdt: Where is this HW acc. toggle in the roon app. I looked twice at all option. In which setting menu?

My chrome tabs do not cause any trouble.

I wrote that as a question. I don't know Roon.

I know they don't on their own. Maybe they make the GPU work harder when you open Roon at the same time though. You could try to disable HW acc. in your browser and see if it lowers the GPU usage.

 

[Apesbrain]

GPU usage turns on my fans

Moved to support.

community.roonlabs.com

 

[Deleted member 48726]

GPU usage turns on my fans

Moved to support.

community.roonlabs.com

Seems like a broken design. If it is like that I would go into nvidia control panel and select Roon and set it to power saving plan.. If Roon doesn't have the option built in to disable HW acc.

 

[Sokel]

Some apps DO use GPUs for computing,apart from CPUs,Roon maybe be like that.

 

[tomtoo]

Yea its absurd using a pc for listening to music. At least from a green point of view.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

Some apps DO use GPUs for computing,apart from CPUs,Roon maybe be like that.

Yeah. Also Microsoft Office apps nowadays. But it's not always the most power efficient way. Using the CPU iGPU is better especially if you are on a laptop.

An audio player should never ever use so much computing power from a modern GPU without the code being broken somewhere..

 

[formdissolve]

When I play Roon GPU never uses more than 3% and usually hovers around 1-2%.. I have a super old GPU though. It's the same with 16bit/24bit/DSD. Are you using any plugins or anything like that?

 

[Chr1]

Yea its absurd using a pc for listening to music. At least from a green point of view.

Not necessarily. My current fanless main PC, which is both an endpoint/renderer and server uses about 8 Watts max...

 

[tomtoo]

Not necessarily. My current fanless main PC, which is both an endpoint/renderer and server uses about 8 Watts max...

What is it? 8Watt thats ultralow for a pc.

 

[Chr1]

It's a Beelink T34 Gemini. Certainly not for gaming but perfect for my needs. Occasionaly goes above 8W, like 10 or so but 8W when playing music via Foobar2000 with MathAudio DSP.

 

[GXAlan]

Seems like a broken design. If it is like that I would go into nvidia control panel and select Roon and set it to power saving plan.. If Roon doesn't have the option built in to disable HW acc.

Wow, that really is a broken design!

They can do that animation in HTML5 or any number of ways that is smarter. If this was open source, freeware, that’s one thing. But at the prices that Roon is charging, that’s just crazy!

 

[kacos]

The GPU is running at high frequency when the roon app is open

what are you talking about?

This is Roon usage (task manager):

These show the overall use of the GPU, including the Windows's own GUI - they are Not Roon specific:

 

[ironhorse128]

@kakos: Thanks for your feedback. Your GPU is also running at almost full clock (1.425 Mhz) and draws 38 W. The GPU usage in the task manager is also not high at my system (below 1%) but the power draw is still high. What happens to your GPU if you close the roon app?

 

[ironhorse128]

@formdissolve: My GPU usage in the task manager is also very low. Still the power draw is high. You need to look at HWiNFO64 or the power draw from the outlet.

My roon setup is rather minimal. There is just the HomeAssistant extension. I no not think that this would use the GPU.