How to Fish Stuttering & High GPU Usage — FPS Cap, Mouse Lag and Tearing

FPS limit says 60 or 120, but the game runs much higher

The strongest current performance pattern is not simply “the game looks demanding.” Several players report that the selected frame cap remains visible while a live counter shows hundreds of frames per second. The same discussion includes reports of much lower GPU use after a maximum frame rate was enforced outside the game.

1. Show a live FPS counter. Use Steam’s overlay or a trusted driver overlay so you can compare the selected cap with the rendered rate.
2. Move the in-game limit once. Change it to another value, apply, then return to the intended limit and apply again.
3. Confirm the result in play. Do not stop at the settings screen; move the camera on an island and watch whether FPS stays near the target.
4. Use one external cap if the game cap still fails. Set a per-game maximum frame rate for How to Fish in the NVIDIA, AMD or Intel graphics control panel. Record the value so it can be removed later.
5. Keep changes isolated. Do not change resolution, VSync, polling rate and driver settings at the same time or you will not know which variable mattered.

Why is How to Fish using 90–100% GPU?

A GPU is designed to run at high utilization, so a high percentage alone does not prove hardware damage. The useful question is whether the game is rendering far beyond the display’s refresh rate, drawing unusually high power, overheating, crashing the driver or staying uncapped while minimized.

The official minimum requirement is only a GeForce GTX 1050 or AMD RX 460 with 8 GB RAM. That makes reports from newer GPUs worth documenting, but it does not establish one universal bug or safe temperature for every card.

Do not use an unknown “optimizer,” replacement executable or registry pack. A frame cap, resolution test and current graphics driver are reversible. Untrusted utilities add another cause to the diagnosis.

Stuttering when moving the mouse or camera

This has a distinct test. A current player with a high-end system reported that the menu and game became unplayable only while the mouse moved, then reported the issue resolved after changing an 8 kHz polling rate. Another discussion describes heavy look-around lag at 8000 Hz.

1. Prove that movement is the trigger. Leave the view still for several seconds, then move the mouse in a circle. Compare the frame-time behavior.
2. Lower polling temporarily. In the mouse manufacturer’s official software, change 8000 Hz or another very high report rate to 1000 Hz.
3. Restart the game. Some input settings are read at launch, so test a clean start rather than only tabbing back in.
4. Try another basic mouse only as a comparison. Do not buy hardware before the polling-rate test; the report concerns how often input is sent, not mouse price.
5. Restore your preferred setting if nothing changes. A community workaround is useful only when your before/after result matches it.

If keyboard movement stutters with the mouse completely still, use the broader FPS and GPU path instead. That symptom is not isolated to polling.

Screen tearing even with VSync

A separate high-end PC report describes tearing and stutter with or without VSync and the FPS limit. That is evidence that no single toggle solves every system. It is not evidence that VSync should always be disabled.

• Confirm the monitor refresh rate in Windows and the actual in-game FPS.
• Test one synchronization path at a time: in-game VSync with no driver override, then a driver cap with the in-game limit documented.
• If you use G-SYNC, FreeSync or another variable-refresh mode, keep the frame rate inside the display’s supported range.
• Compare borderless and windowed mode once. Keep the mode that produces the cleanest frame pacing on the same scene.
• Record whether tearing is a horizontal split, while “stutter” is an uneven pause. They can occur together but are not the same symptom.

Safe performance test order

1. Restart Steam and install the current official build. Patch 1.0.9 is the newest entry in the official feed checked for this page.
2. Remove mods and overlays from the test. Keep Steam’s FPS display if needed, but close capture tools and third-party injectors.
3. Confirm and reapply the FPS cap. Use a driver-level per-game cap only if the active rate remains above target.
4. Test mouse polling if motion is the trigger. Use 1000 Hz as a temporary comparison.
5. Lower resolution or quality one step. Retest the same island and camera route.
6. Update the graphics driver from the GPU vendor. Avoid third-party driver-download sites.
7. Run Steam’s installed-file check once. This can repair program files; it cannot fix a save-specific scene or restore inventory.

Did Patch 1.0.9 fix FPS, GPU or stutter?

No such fix is listed in the official note. Patch 1.0.9 documents Easy and Hard difficulty settings, a short Steam connection debug and a “hopefully fixed” save-corruption change. It does not mention an FPS limiter, GPU utilization, mouse polling, screen tearing or general audio.

Keep the version in every report because a later patch may change the answer. Do not turn the absence of a patch-note line into proof that the developer is unaware of the issue.

Performance report checklist

• CPU, GPU, RAM and Windows version.
• Monitor resolution and refresh rate.
• Selected FPS limit versus the live measured FPS.
• GPU utilization, temperature and power only if shown by a trusted monitor.
• Mouse model and polling rate, especially 8 kHz versus 1000 Hz.
• VSync/variable-refresh status and window mode.
• Island, solo or co-op state, host status and whether the problem occurs while alt-tabbed.
• Exact result after one controlled change.