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Claude Code Issues / #67928

[BUG] Windows: Active Claude Code agent pegs iGPU depending on visible Claude Desktop window size

Status Open
Maintainer reply None cached
Workaround ✓ Mentioned in description ↑
Activity 4 comments · opened Jun 12, 2026

Preflight Checklist

  • [x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
  • [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
  • [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code

What's Wrong?

What's Wrong?

This may be related to #67670, #26302, #58817, #66495, #56805 and #51955, but I am filing a separate Windows-specific issue because the trigger is different and reproducible.

Claude Desktop on Windows causes high sustained Intel iGPU usage only while a Claude Code agent is actively running and the Claude Desktop window is visible.

This does not appear to be caused by the project workload itself, local AI computation, mouse control, or visible GUI test automation. The GPU load is tied to the visible Claude Desktop window area during an active Claude Code agent run.

Observed behavior:

  • Windows laptop with Intel integrated GPU + NVIDIA dedicated GPU.
  • Claude Desktop version: 1.12603.1 (3df4fd).
  • Claude Code agent active + Claude Desktop window fully visible: Intel iGPU / GPU 0 / 3D rises to very high sustained usage, around 90–95%.
  • Claude Code agent active + Claude Desktop window reduced to about 20% of visible screen area: GPU usage drops significantly, around 50%.
  • Claude Code agent finished: GPU usage drops back down.
  • The GPU-consuming process is Claude.exe.
  • This also happens with small prompts.
  • It happens without explicitly asking for mouse control, screen automation, visible GUI tests, or any local GPU-heavy workload.
  • If the Claude Desktop window is hidden, minimized, or mostly covered, GPU usage drops substantially.

This suggests that the active Claude Code agent UI triggers a continuous renderer/compositing/repaint loop, and the cost scales with the visible Claude Desktop window area.

Expected Behavior

Claude Desktop should not peg the integrated GPU merely because a Claude Code agent is active and the Desktop window is visible.

The UI should render efficiently during active agent runs, or provide a user-facing setting to disable hardware acceleration / GPU compositing.

Actual Behavior

During active Claude Code agent runs, Claude Desktop appears to continuously repaint/re-render the visible window.

The larger the visible Claude Desktop window area, the higher the Intel iGPU usage. When the agent finishes, the GPU usage drops back down.

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Use Windows 11 on a laptop with Intel iGPU and NVIDIA dGPU.
  2. Start Claude Desktop.
  3. Start a Claude Code agent task.
  4. Open Windows Task Manager and enable the columns "GPU" and "GPU engine".
  5. Keep the Claude Desktop window fully visible.
  6. Observe Claude.exe using GPU 0 - 3D at very high sustained usage.
  7. Resize or cover the Claude window so only about 20% remains visible.
  8. Observe GPU usage dropping significantly.
  9. Let the Claude Code agent finish.
  10. Observe GPU usage dropping back down.

Environment

  • OS: Windows 11
  • GPU 0: Intel integrated GPU
  • GPU 1: NVIDIA dedicated GPU
  • Claude Desktop version: 1.12603.1 (3df4fd)
  • Claude Code version: [insert if shown separately]
  • Installation type: [Microsoft Store/MSIX or claude.com download]
  • Laptop model: [insert laptop model]
  • Power state during observation: [charger plugged in / unplugged]
  • Note: When unplugged, the NVIDIA dGPU may be disabled by the laptop power profile, so Claude Desktop falls back to the Intel iGPU. However, the core issue is that the GPU load appears to be driven by the visible Claude Desktop window during an active agent run.

Related Issues

Possibly related, but not the same trigger:

  • #67670: Windows/MSIX multi-GPU cursor stutter/lag over Claude Desktop window
  • #26302: Windows foreground UI lag / mouse stutter
  • #58817: Large desktop app window size pegs iGPU, but reported on Linux
  • #66495: Windows / NVIDIA renderer degradation
  • #56805: Windows / Electron GPU compositing / DWM behavior
  • #51955: Windows dual-GPU laptop using integrated GPU instead of NVIDIA

The difference in this report is the specific reproducible trigger:

active Claude Code agent + visible Claude Desktop window area = sustained Intel iGPU load

Workaround

Minimizing, hiding, or mostly covering the Claude Desktop window during active agent work reduces GPU usage substantially.

A user-facing "Disable Hardware Acceleration" or "Disable GPU Compositing" setting would likely help.

What Should Happen?

Claude Desktop should reduce GPU usage and power consumption during active Claude Code agent runs.

When a Claude Code agent is active and the Claude Desktop window is visible, Claude.exe should not cause sustained high Intel iGPU usage or "Very high" power usage in Windows Task Manager.

Expected behavior:

  • GPU usage should stay at a reasonable level during normal active agent work.
  • Power usage should stay at a reasonable level during normal active agent work.
  • The visible size of the Claude Desktop window should not cause GPU usage and power usage to rise dramatically.
  • Reducing, covering, or minimizing the Claude Desktop window should not be necessary to avoid high GPU and power usage.

Error Messages/Logs

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Use a Windows 11 laptop with an integrated Intel GPU and a dedicated NVIDIA GPU.
  1. Start Claude Desktop.
  • Claude Desktop version used here: 1.12603.1 (3df4fd)
  1. Open Windows Task Manager.
  1. In Task Manager, enable these columns:
  • GPU
  • GPU engine
  • Power usage
  • Power usage trend
  1. Open the Claude Desktop Code tab / Claude Code agent view.
  1. Start a minimal Claude Code agent task in any local folder. No special project, GUI test, browser automation, image processing, or local GPU-heavy workload is required.

Example prompt:

```text
Create a file named gpu-repro.txt containing the text "gpu repro test". Then read it back, inspect the current folder, and report what you did. Do not use browser automation, mouse control, screen automation, GUI tests, image processing, or any visible UI testing.
While the Claude Code agent is actively running, keep the Claude Desktop window fully visible on screen.
Observe in Task Manager:
The GPU-consuming process is Claude.exe.
GPU engine shows GPU 0 - 3D.
Intel iGPU usage rises to very high sustained usage, around 90–95%.
Power usage for Claude.exe is shown as "Very high".
Without stopping the agent, reduce or cover the Claude Desktop window so that only about 20% of the window area remains visible.
Observe that GPU usage drops significantly, but still remains around 50%, which is still high for a mostly text-based UI.
Observe that power usage also remains high/very high while the agent is active and the Claude Desktop window is still partly visible.
Minimize or hide the Claude Desktop window while the agent is still active.
Observe that GPU usage drops substantially.
Let the Claude Code agent finish.
Observe that GPU usage and power usage drop back down after the agent is no longer active.
Repeat with another small prompt that does not involve GUI work, screen automation, browser automation, image processing, or local GPU-heavy work. The same behavior occurs: the GPU and power usage are tied to active agent work plus visible Claude Desktop window area, not to the project workload itself.

Claude Model

Not sure / Multiple models

Is this a regression?

I don't know

Last Working Version

Version 1.12603.1 (3df4fd)

Claude Code Version

Version 1.12603.1 (3df4fd)

Platform

Other

Operating System

Windows

Terminal/Shell

PowerShell

Additional Information

_No response_

View original on GitHub ↗

4 Comments

github-actions[bot] · 2 months ago

Found 1 possible duplicate issue:

  1. https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/53537

This issue will be automatically closed as a duplicate in 3 days.

  • If your issue is a duplicate, please close it and 👍 the existing issue instead
  • To prevent auto-closure, add a comment or 👎 this comment

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

manekom2-star · 2 months ago

Not a duplicate of #53537 — that issue is already closed as not planned and locked (conversation limited to collaborators since May 7). It is not possible to add comments or upvote that issue.

This issue (#67928) describes a specific, reproducible trigger that differs from #53537:- Trigger: active Claude Code agent + visible Claude Desktop window area → sustained Intel iGPU load- GPU and power usage scale with the visible window area- This also happens with simple prompts (no GUI tests, no browser automation, no screen automation)Since #53537 is locked and closed, please keep this issue open so it can be tracked and fixed independently.

nullscanner · 1 month ago

Updating this comment — my original had a broken link and predates a few findings. Also note the issue I
linked (#77857) is now closed and refiled; see below.

Related to this thread but a distinct trigger.

Your repro: active Claude Code agent + visible window, Intel iGPU doing the rendering on a laptop, sustained
90-95% load scaling with visible window area.

Mine: desktop, both displays on the discrete GPU (RTX 5090), iGPU present but driving nothing. Not
agent-dependent — the stutter occurs whenever the Claude Desktop window has focus, in chat and in Claude Code
sessions alike. Worst on new-chat creation and chat/session switching, i.e. full conversation-view re-renders.

Four findings that may be useful here:

  1. The direct download from anthropic.com is ALSO MSIX-packaged — it is not a classic installer.

Get-AppxPackage *Claude* returns PackageFamilyName Claude_pzs8sxrjxfjjc, InstallLocation under
C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\. The environment template on this issue asks "Microsoft Store/MSIX or
claude.com download" as if they're alternatives. They aren't. Users avoiding the Store to keep flag control
don't actually get it.

  1. Cross-GPU offload is not the mechanism, at least in my config. Windows Settings -> Display -> Graphics ->

Claude -> "High performance" had ZERO effect, and the integrated Radeon measures 0% across 3D/Copy/Compute
with 0.0 GB allocated while the stutter is happening. Both my displays are already on the discrete GPU, so
there's no cross-GPU frame copy to eliminate. Worth flagging in case the dual-GPU explanation from #51955 /
#56805 is being treated as the general root cause for this class of report.

  1. HDR is not the trigger. Both my displays run HDR by default; toggling it off changed nothing. Noting it

because #25801 / #45031 implicate HDR in a related MSIX/NVIDIA failure.

  1. High refresh rate is not a necessary condition. #26302 and #25801 both implicate high-refresh panels. My

two panels are high-refresh-capable but running at ~60 Hz, and the stutter happens anyway. What my config
does have is pixel count: 7680x2160 + 3440x1440, ~21.5 MP of desktop, with 150% scaling on the primary.

One difference from your report worth calling out: my load is transient, not sustained. It fires on view
transitions and window focus and is over faster than Task Manager's sampling interval, so the graphs show no
excursion even while the cursor is visibly teleporting. Yours shows steady 90-95% for the duration of an agent
run. Might be the same underlying repaint path with different duty cycles, or might be two things.

--disable-gpu-compositing fully resolves it for me, but only via direct .exe invocation, which loses package
identity and breaks the disk cache (ERROR:net\disk_cache\cache_util_win.cc:25] Unable to move the cache:
Access is denied. (0x5)). Elevation doesn't help — it's an identity failure, not a permissions failure.

Full report with environment, measurements and everything I ruled out: https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/77903

+1 on the user-facing "Disable Hardware Acceleration" toggle. It's the common ask across every one of these
threads and it's one app.disableHardwareAcceleration() call behind a setting.

nullscanner · 1 month ago

Maintainer ask, if anyone with triage rights is reading this thread:

My report at #77903 was auto-labeled invalid ("Issue doesn't seem to be related to Claude Code") by
github-actions on creation. It's the same subsystem as this issue — Claude Desktop GPU compositing on Windows —
and it reproduces in Claude Code sessions, not just chat.

It has a clean repro, direct measurements (integrated GPU at 0% while the stutter occurs), and rules out
cross-GPU offload, HDR, and high refresh rate as causes. #77877 and #77878 were filed the same day and carry
area:desktop / area:ui / bug / platform:windows, so the label doesn't appear to be intended for this
class of report.

Could someone relabel #77903 to area:desktop / bug / has repro / performance / platform:windows?
The invalid label filters it out of triage entirely, which is the only reason I'm asking.

Happy to move it elsewhere if this repo is the wrong home for Desktop issues — but there's no obvious
alternative tracker, which is presumably why every issue linked above is also here.

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