I have no idea why is this , but let me guess: is this an ATI card?

Possibly the game devotes the full time to screen updates instead of game logic + screen updates while not paused.
Why would game programmers write energy saving games that only update the screen if needed...

I can't say I've ever come across something like this, which game or games have you noticed this happeing with or just any game that has a main menu screen when you press the ESC key ???

keropi wrote:

I have no idea why is this , but let me guess: is this an ATI card?

The R300-R481 are notoriously unstable for things like that, though later "HD" radeons has fixed it.
I'd suggest using ATITool to tweak the 'smart' fan settings

It is Geforce 280 GTX. This card is known as very noisy so i guess that is why the noise effect is very noticable here.
Games I tried: Wolfenstein, Need for Speed Shift, Star Wars Force Unleashed.
I wonder why turning on Vsync doesn't help, as I think it should limit screen updates to 60 frames per second.

I think I noticed something similar when I bought that card when it first came out. Crysis in the menus would do the exact same thing. Eventually tho the damn card would run at 100% fan speed all the time and after reading up on the net about issues with that line I returned it and went back to ATI.

Will give Nvidia another shot in 1-2 yrs. heh.

Some Nvidia and ATI cards also emit a "squealing" noise in the Crysis menu's (and some other games too). Enabling v-sync will just limit the framerate to whatever the monitor refresh rate is set to (60hz = 60fps, 70hz = 70fps etc...) and it also gets rid of that horrible texture/screen tearing effect.

I have installed fraps and tested Star Wars Force Unleashed again.
I have Geforce 285 now btw which is way silenter but still same problem happens.
The results are that during the game fraps says i have 30 fps and msi afterburner says i have 30% GPU usage.
But when pause the game by entering the menu i have 100 fps and 100% GPU usage (with vsync off).
When i turn on vsync i have 60fps in the menu and 60% GPU usage. So vsync is indeed limiting the problem but the card is still noisy.
I was wondering whether it would be possible to set refresh rate to 30Hz...
But i think another solution appeared: Future Nvidia drivers will include FPS limiter: http://www.zeus-software.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=301

BTW is that a coincidence that 30fps is 30%GPU usage for me (60fps->60% and 100fps->100% too)??

The loudest grpahics cards i've ever owned were a pair of Geforce 7900GT's... They were very hot, loud and annoying! The fan speed couldn't be changed either (both using a crap Nvidia reference design 😒).

I never really check my GPU or CPU usage when playing games, but now i might take a peek and see if the usage number matches the framerate number. I find it a bit odd to be honest.

I have had my share of weird issues with nVidia lately. I miss the times of the TNT2 card. But as everyone has said so far, both manufacturers have their share of issues. Personally, I prefer AMD/ATI.