Yesterday I was in a bedding area that me and a friend found and the deer where piling up, I was getting 40-50 fps with a GTX 1080ti and a 7700k on a 1440p(144hz) monitor, which is insane because I can run newer games at a higher fps with graphics settings maxed out.
So I went and opened task manager on the performance tab in another monitor, when the deer where nearby, the game was using 30-40% of my GPU and around 40% CPU. I was getting from 40 to 50fps. When we left the area, it jumped back to 100% GPU and 60% CPU and was getting over 100fps (which is still not ok). My friend also did this and he found out that he also had 40% GPU usage with and without the deer(AMD, don't remember which one exactly). I imagine this also happens with ptarmigans because when I encounter them my fps drops like crazy.
Both my GTX 1080ti and his AMD were using only 1.9GB out of the 11GB of the GTX1080ti and 8GB of the AMD.
I encourage anyone to also try this and let me know what results they get. It may be just us after all....