Playing Minecraft, something wrong with graphics card? Or normal behaviour?

[X82]

Recently I've been playing a lot of minecraft on my GTX 580. I've allocated 5 gigs of ram to the Java 7, 64 bit (I got 16gigs ram). But the framerate is horrific. I am using the Hat Pack mods.
The game is far from smooth, frames can drop to 20 or less, with a stuttering every few seconds. I use MSI Afterburner to underclock the card because without it, a lot of games crashed. Using the hardware monitor in Afterburner I notice things which seem odd.
GPU usage is nearly 0, maybe moving up to 3/4% and that is just at the desktop. It is almost like my card is not being used to play minecraft. I've updated all drivers, using latest Nvidia. I've added javaw.exe to the Nvidia control panel to "force" it to use the GPU, but that doesn't work either, GPU usage still near zero.
I've just tried Arma 3 and that causes the GPU usage to hit 90/100 and the temp to rise. Im not sure if this is normal behaviour with minecraft of not. The game is nearly unplayable sometimes, closing it and re-opening can speed it up, but it is never smooth. I'm also not running any texture packs and Optifine made no difference, in fact I started to get graphical glitches, textures not appearing and being able to see through walls.
I've tweaked every settings I can to get more frames, nothing makes a difference, even going so far as to add commands in the launcher for Java, these are: -XX:MaxPermSize=128M -XX:+CMSIncrementalPacing -XXarallelGCThreads=4 -XX:+AggressiveOpts -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC -XX:+UseParNewGC -XX:UseSSE=4

I'm even tempted to re-format my PC, as in some rare occasions that seems to fix issues only I have and no one else seems to experience.

 

[tommybhoy]

If it works without the Hat Pack mod, it's the mod, easiest way to check is disable it.

Minecraft mods are a nightmare at times even using forge, one incompatible mod and it's a no go.

 

[X82]

My issues is, I play on a multiplayer server with my buddy. Upgrading Minecraft from 1.6.4 is not an option for me, as is not using any mods. Most annoying. He has none of my issues. He also uses the Sphax texture pack at 256. If I try it, even the 64 version, my frames die even quicker.

 

[BlackCoat2k10]

Had similar issues with my uncles Minecraft lately, a simple fix was to install the latest Java 64 bit version and remove the older one. He went from 5-6fps to 70 odd.

 

[Kainz]

Minecraft is a funny old game.

Firstly realise that is is CPU dependent more than anything else. Your GPU doesn't really come into play - raw cpu power is what really matters. That said, the gpu should be at least seeing some memory usage. Isn't there a high performance mode profile in the nvidia control panel that you could use?

I run a private Feed the Beast server with the Direwolf20 for MC 1.6.4 modpack. Due to all the machines and liquid storage tanks my base has my fps can drop from 80 to 20 in various areas and there's nothing much I can do about it aside from spacing stuff out or moving it to another area/dimension. The game simply wasn't built for mods and is being push at it's hardest until MC 1.8 comes.

MC 1.8 has a TON of underlying changes - the rendering engine has been rebuilt and you'll see huge frame rate boosts as it'll now utilise multiple cores.

How many mods are you running? Is it a FTB modpack you're using or something?

 

[Ch3m1c4L]

within minecraft, is there a graphics option to select which adapter to use? Its not randomly using the cpu one or something is it?

 

[X82]

How many mods are you running? Is it a FTB modpack you're using or something?

This version is for the Hat Pack on the official server. This mode requires 150 mods.
Its a shame as when 1.8 is supported (which I can imagine will be a long while off) it will be too late. My buddy has no where near the same frame problems and while his framerate like yours will drop when near multiple machines, mine seems to be in a constant state of fluctuation.