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Reduce memory and CPU usage in progress
Added by
galland101 The GOG Galaxy Client and another process called the GOGGalaxyHelper appear to be using almost 0.5 GB of memory while downloading a game. Furthermore, on an older Intel Core 2 Duo computer, it appears to be using almost 50% of the total CPU during a download.
NESecretWeapon March 23rd, 2023 - YOU DO NOT NEED NOR SHOULD YOU USE GOG GALAXY!! After playing Anno 1404 Gold Edition (released in 2011!!) for 16 hours with no issues, I go to load it up today and the game freezes during developer logos. After a few attempts to fix the issue, I check my resources ... I have 32 GB of RAM and GOG and my Anti-Virus were fighting over it! I have never seen Kaspersky use so much RAM nor should a background task EVER freeze my PC. What is the GameHelper Client Application and why is it overloading my resources!?!?! I uninstalled GOG Galaxy and run Anno through its .exe file and no issues what-so-ever. This Galaxy is very invasive and totally not needed.
TuringM 01/03/2023 just got two Galaxy Client Helper Application took 50-70% CPU. I have NO additions, and like 10 games on it.
Launched the client that said it has to download an update. Tried. Failed, asking to download it manually (v 2.0.60).
263 Mb
Failed to close running apps. Impossible to continue. Abort installation.
Closed the apps myself.
Relaunched install (dowloading 263 Mb of crap each time). Error: install already running.
Had to launch it 3 times to succeed.
Holly piece of junk is that software right? Coded using monkeys and ChatGPT probably...
NIGHTINFORMANT Why does the GOG Galaxy client spam so many network connections? While steam.exe only maintains one connection to a remote IP GalaxyClient.exe uses two connections ( one being a loopback) and then it spawns galaxycommunication.exe which currently has 11 TCP connections open 7 of which are from a loopback going to a loopback. Usually this isn't such a concern when I'm on my desktop but if I wanted to play on my Surface Pro 7 it actually causes performance issues and I have to quit the client
spleendamage GoG Galaxy downloading a game was using more than 60% CPU and my fans started spinning up like a jet engine. The download wasn't particularly fast either, so I'm not sure what was going on there. Throttled the CPU use in Task manager (details screen) by setting the priority lower and the processor affinity to just one core.
Is this ever going to be fixed?
doctorfrog When a game is playing, lower RAM and video memory usage to near zero.
Vrass How did you manage to limit bandwidth?
carionto I recently had this problem where once I started Galaxy up and there was a download pending, it would almost immediatelly hog up nearly all available CPU (as in usage went up to 99% making the fans go crazy), freeze up, then crash.
I managed to "solve" this by limiting the bandwidth. After a few failed attempts by restarting the PC, making sure not to start up anything else except Galaxy, and then very patiently click through settings I found a fix. Since the CPU load was near max due to the download, the simple act of clicking through the menu took about 20 minutes. Once I did manage to limit the bandwidth to 25mbs, Galaxy instantly began to run smoothly. I then also disconnected all other integrations I had active just to be on the safe side. Have not had problems with Galaxy since, but this is a serious flaw that I have not encountered with other platforms.
TarynV Followup to my last comment:
I don't know if this might help anyone else, but I seem to have hit on a solution, of sorts -- after discovering GoG is not the only "download manager" to manifest this problem, I dug into Windows' Power Options/Advance settings. In the section for Wireless Adapter Settings, changing the Power Saving Mode when "Plugged In" from "Maximum Performance" to "Low Power Saving" made enough of a difference so that GoG (and a couple of other wayward downloaders) no longer seem to peg the Power Usage at Very High -- and the CPU temp now stays comfortably in the 40-50 degree range.
To my mind, this still suggests these downloaders have to be doing something wrong, to be drawing so much power for a simple download.
TarynV Yep. Just downloaded Galaxy to my brand new MSI Katana GF66 the power draw (displayed in Task Manager) was ridiculously high, and the MSI Monitor showed the CPU temp hovering around 75-80 Celsius, with fans running at full blast. And it took it forever to download. As soon as the download/install finished, power consumption dropped to normal levels, and CPU temp dropped quickly dropped back to a comfortable 35 degrees. I have no idea how the devs could have gone so wrong with Galaxy, but THIS ISN'T JUST A NICE-TO-HAVE ... this kind of careless programming is a potential CPU-killer.
Oktokolo The CPU load is absurd. And whenever Galaxy does anything, the GUI basically freezes to the point that the main window doesn't even open or redraw if already open.
It seems to be multithreaded, so i have no idea how they managed to make it perform that bad.
It performs even worse than the Epic launcher!
LLK18 GalaxyClient Helper Application bogs down my Core 2 Quad using high cpu levels for long periods
Capzoots Still sucks, like really bad, is it not supposed to handle 3000+ games, cause i though that was the whole reason for it. IDK but it is a system hog, why does it have to scan every time its' opened?
Zamperator Galaxy has an extremely high load, lags and problems when it must handle over 2000 games. Sometimes it simply hangs for minutes.
novous fun fact: At idle, in late 2021, GOG Galaxy still uses >>114<< CPU threads. There's zero excuse for that. It's not even downloading.
lautz CPU usage is crazy for downloading and installing a game... how hasn't this been fixed until now ? ! ?
Leryan6 As of today, on a brand new Windows 10 freshly installed, on a i5 8th gen proc: gog galaxy installer takes up to 50% of CPU just to download the entire installer. installing a game takes me 100% of CPU.
at least you’re not the only ones who forgot how to download a file. Microsoft and Apple have the same problems. lol.
SinDromX My system has plenty of memory but I can't find a good justification for a software that basically does nothing to use up to half a GB of memory.
mackraven Downloads of updates for Cyberpunk use 100% of HDD. Wtf.
Sin_Flux Ok, I spoke too soon as there was an update reduced the CPU usage. Better so far.
Sin_Flux The old GOG Galaxy was just fine. This current one uses a crap load of CPU and just make things slower. It's like a worse version of Steam.
ganchan_ MacBook Pro 2018 BigSure GOG Galaxy Overlay Helper use 101% of CPU all the time.
Laike GOG Galaxy 2.0 consistently uses 1-3% CPU when minimized to the taskbar. Having the application active bumped things up to 4-10%, even when there is no downloads or imports going. The RAM consumption is anywhere between 100-250mb spread across all the processes. I come bck to Galaxy 2.0 every few months to see if the situation improved because I like the software more than Playite. I'd be more than happy to make the switch permanently as soon as Galaxy stops consuming multiple times the amount of resources the competition uses.
Kim_Haze Same problems here. If this won't get better, more resource friendly (respective RAM and CPU background tasking, file scanning etc.), more transparent and more secure for users, I'll deinstall GogGalaxy soon.
gregrout I can't do it. The GoG Galaxy client is a bloated carcass that demands and seizes full control of your computer. It bricks the hell out of my computer whenever it wants to scan all my games. I do NOT want your "one ring to launch them all" client. I don't want it scanning my folders and shove itself down my throat. There should be an option to completely disable all this integration bloat if you don't want it. This experience completely turned off buying GoG games. It's such a horrible experience for anyone with a significantly large library of games.
Big.Wickett I swear I never get out of memory crashes except when Galaxy is installed on my PC. Uninstalling it always solves the problem. This has been going on for years. Galaxy is a nice UI but it's a really shoddy piece of programming that hogs all my resources. Why has this taken so long to get fixed?
IBranthrax Over 100mb when Steam is consistently around 30 and Epic 60 isn't a good look.
fueledbyspite Why does GalaxyClient Helper Application need to run three instances? Can I turn them off? I wanted DRM free not always on line.
sh4dow83 I recommend trying out the Galaxy 2.0 Beta. I installed it 2 days ago because Galaxy 1.x used 10-20% while running a game, causing it to stutter a bit. No issue with 2.0 and I'm getting only 0.2-0.5% CPU usage and 50 MB RAM when it's just running in the background and idle.
reaper13 Plox.
I have tablet with 2 GB RAM. I know it's super low. But for old games it is great platform.
LordEbu GOG Chrome, haha.
But yeah, reduce the bloat and perhaps the telemetry too.
Cimlite I love the client but this is a deal breaker for me. I always try to minimize background processes, as does probably a lot of people who play games...
When minimized, the client should be almost dead. There's no reason why it should be using several percent of a modern CPU when doing nothing.
ELFswe The three little helpers are for me running at 0,8-2% at idle wich also is too much. They should stay at 0% unless they actuelly are doing something useful.
GopherMusket As I am typing this Galaxy is at 40% cpu usage with 3 instances of GalaxyClient Helper.exe running. Why?
Setmose Mac Pro 8-Core running Win 7 Pro in Bootcamp. "GalaxyClient Helper Application" process was idling with 2-percent of total CPU, and 400MB of RAM. I launched GOG Galaxy, and in the Settings I unset: "General / Auto Start / Launch GOG Galaxy at system startup", "Features / Game Data features / Auto-update games", and "Features / Game Data features / Cloud saves". Closed GOG Galaxy. Without restarting, I watched as the process resource dwindled, and then dropped out of the active process list in Windows Task Manager. Problem solved! It's obvious that the polling activity is heavy and could use some better coding.
sh4dow83 It looks like they've recently updated the client to cause less CPU usage when idle - woohoo! From 5% or so down to 0.1-0.5%!
S1lcardo Seems to be an issue with the store page graphics. At least in my case. As soon as I switched the tab to 'Library', GPU and CPU Load goas down to below 1%.
Workaround:
Go to GOG Galaxy Settings, under 'General' Tab select 'Stating Page' -> 'Library' so your launcher starts up in your Library.
But as I said, just a Workaround, please fix this GOG
AdrianLusvep Background usage still isn't ideal but I don't have a massive issue at all, it has certainly improved a lot.
But I do understand the complaints, it's GOOD OLD GAMES and so you'd expect the client to be light for weaker systems that should have no issues playing dated games.
laptopleon Even more annoying is that the GOG Galaxy Overlay Helper process stays alive, after you quit GOG Galaxy itself.. Seriously, this is they largest battery drain ever. #WTF
laptopleon I'm surprised this is still not fixed. I'm on a Mac laptop and JUST THE IDLING GOG OVERLAY HELPER process is using 15 - 20% of the CPU power. This is completely nuts. Then another 2 - 3% for GOG Galaxy Overlay itself.
Please, finally fix this already. It's clear that there's something completely off the hook here.
Velheibgnar It's unusable and stupid. Process name is 'GalaxyClient Helper Application' . Well, 'Steam Client Bootstrapper' also is heavy but it's duo to I'm on windows insider. 4-8% CPU for fully idle, minimized GOG.... seriously, on Ryzen 2700x ...
levictus The GOG client seems to take up half a gig of RAM in idle mode. This seems excessive relative to other "background" applications that do a lot more work, but use a lot less RAM.
TheNorse It is still an issue. It is really taxing on the cpu while steam is lightweight.
judas.596 +1. I am far from home, finally enjoying my GOG collection, but Galaxy client is tanking my memory hard.. i play games after i shut it down.. which is a littme bummer
Curratum I've been waiting for the client to become usable for a couple of years now. It still isn't. Idling with an open library actually taxes the CPU. Downloading any game makes the computer slow down visibly.
No reason to even keep this on your hard drive in this state, really. It's been quite a while, GOG, I mean, come on, hire some new people and rebuild this from the ground up, it's a mess in this state.
djp07 Stop mining bitcoins. There's no other sensible reason for thrashing the disk and using so much CPU/RAM/Network while supposed to be idling in the background with auto-updates turned OFF. This is theft.
ahumeniy On mu Surface Book with Windows 10 1809 I can see GPU usage on Task Manager and GOG client uses about 50% GPU all of the time even with minimized and supposedly not displaying anything. I had to configure it to use the discrete GPU to keep the temperatures in check (dGPU is on the base so it has its own heatsink and fan and thus doesn't affect CPU temperatures when in use)
sh4dow83 This really is nuts. I never noticed this in the past but since i recently bought a notebook, I now of course check the CPU usage of everything closely. And I don't get why on earth Galaxy uses 5% CPU at all times.
pb4747 Galaxy client helper app really suks big time, as a matter of fact I am starting to feel I have had enough of GOG too.
I ran into a problem downloading and installing a game that my NVidia GT555m card was not compatable to. That was fine, I took the support response to this in my stride and totally unistalled the game. GOG then updated and my system has been stuffed ever since. I have been trying to get support for over a week on this issue to no avail so I am now taking matters in my own hand. First I have unsubscribed to all GOG email ads and notifications. 2nd, every day I have to go into the GOG folder and rename one file (yes, every cold start the gog updater rewrites it) the file is the Galaxy Client helper exe. This file has something continually creating interupts which means it is continually trying to start. Not only that it rewrites it self into my task mannager and I can have 5 to 7 of the Galaxy Client Helper apps trying to run at once all being continually interupted and rebooting. The result of this event causes my curser to continually flash with the hour glass. My CPU usage rises to 30 to 40%, my CPU fan is running flat out on the laptop, the heat is incredible. As soon I go into the folder and rename the galaxyclienthelper.exe my problems immediately stops and my CPU usage drops to 1% usage. The next cold start the GOG updater rewrites the Gallaxy Client helper file and I have to go through all the crap again. I am about to cut my losses (games) and totally remove GOG and all registeries relating to them.
Peed off East Gippsland Australia. Ticket #258299
ps the reason I wrote this here was to let you guys know to delete the GalaxyClientHelper.exe from your Galaxy folder in your programs folder and watch your CPU usage drop immediately. Unfortunately you have to do this after every cold start because GOGupdater rewrites it. :(
CodeJunkie To add to this...I get the concept of the client, but it needs to be as non-intrusive as possible. It should function as fast and seamlessly as possible.
CodeJunkie Same experience as everyone else. Way too many processes running, uses way too much RAM and kills the CPU just doing simple things like downloading files....oh, when it decides to actually start. I have over 929 games in my library and I dread having to load the client. It takes forever to startup and just siting idle chews up CPU. I'm running GOG on a E8600 with an Nvidia 8600GT, a CRT monitor and 8GB RAM...setup to play older games on...which is the vast majority of my library. And of course with the switch to making the shortcuts load the client first (like steam) it just makes the whole experience even worse. Also, I have CPU Temperature program running in my tray on this computer and when the client runs it's heating both cores up into the 60s (c) damn near the 70s. The current client should not be being distributed. I know it uses Qt, but I didn't realize Qt was this bad now. I mean, when the program is idle...which it should be most of the time...it should not be using any CPU...and downloading files...that's mostly not CPU bound, so I'm not sure what the hell is going on with this thing.
114 comments about this wish