Excessive GPU usage caused by Telegram loading spinner, reproducible across GPU drivers and power-saving modes

[WinZip17]

Steps to reproduce

1. Open Telegram Desktop on a Windows laptop with both an integrated GPU and a discrete NVIDIA GPU.
2. Open a chat containing media or content that causes Telegram to display the loading spinner/preloader.
3. Open Windows Task Manager → Performance → GPU.
4. Observe GPU utilization while the Telegram interface is idle, without the loading spinner.
5. Trigger the loading spinner and observe GPU utilization again.
6. For an additional test, force Telegram to use the integrated GPU through Windows Graphics settings.
7. Enable maximum power-saving mode and run the laptop on battery power.
8. Repeat the test while the loading spinner is displayed.

This issue was previously reported here: [LINK TO PREVIOUS REPORT].

The previous report was closed with the explanation that the issue was related to GPU drivers and that Telegram rendering uses the CPU rather than the GPU. Since then, I have updated the NVIDIA drivers and tested multiple newer Telegram versions, but the issue remains reproducible.

I also performed an additional test using the integrated GPU (Intel(R) Iris(R) Xe Graphics) instead of the NVIDIA RTX 4060, with maximum power-saving mode enabled and while running on battery power. Under these conditions, the loading spinner still caused very high GPU utilization.

Expected behaviour

A simple loading spinner should require minimal rendering resources and should not cause a significant increase in GPU utilization.

GPU usage should remain close to the idle level, or increase only slightly while the spinner is displayed, especially when Telegram is running in power-saving mode on battery power.

Changing the GPU or updating its drivers should not significantly affect the reproducibility of such excessive resource usage if the cause is related to Telegram's rendering behaviour.

Actual behaviour

Displaying the loading spinner causes a disproportionately high GPU load.

On my NVIDIA RTX 4060, GPU utilization increases to approximately 35–40% while the loading spinner is displayed, despite the spinner being a very simple animated UI element.

After updating GPU drivers and waiting for several newer Telegram versions, the problem remains unchanged.

As an additional experiment, I forced Telegram to use the integrated GPU, enabled maximum power saving, and ran the laptop on battery power. In this configuration, displaying the same loading spinner increased integrated GPU utilization to approximately 50%.

The attached screenshots show the difference in GPU utilization without the loading spinner and while the spinner is displayed. The increase is clearly correlated with the appearance of the preloader.

This makes the issue reproducible across different GPU configurations and power modes, so I believe it should be investigated again rather than attributed solely to a specific GPU driver.

Operating system

Windows 11 (Version 25H2)

Version of Telegram Desktop

7.1.3

Installation source

Downloaded from desktop.telegram.org or GitHub

Crash ID

No response

Logs

[ilya-fedin]

Does it decrease if you:

1. Make the window smaller?
2. Close the chat with the second radial animation (while not making the window smaller)? I.e. so that only bottom left corner is animating.

[WinZip17]

Does it decrease if you:

1. Make the window smaller?
2. Close the chat with the second radial animation (while not making the window smaller)? I.e. so that only bottom left corner is animating.

Size doesn’t matter. As soon as the loader disappears from view, the load disappears (scroll or close the chat).

[ilya-fedin]

As soon as the loader disappears from view, the load disappears (scroll or close the chat).

Do you have animations disabled?

[WinZip17]

As soon as the loader disappears from view, the load disappears (scroll or close the chat).

Do you have animations disabled?

Судя по нику можно по руски (поправьте, если опять в переводчик идти)? Да, выключена вся анимация и предзагрузка мультимедии. Как только нажимаешь "показать картинку" сразу нагрузка вырастает. Как только картинка появляется - всё хорошо. Очень удобно проверять отключая/замедляя интернет (или включая не работающий прокси). При чем у видео нет такой проблемы

[ilya-fedin]

7. Enable maximum power-saving mode and run the laptop on battery power.

Is this step is a must? Triager with a Windows machine says he doesn't have a laptop to do that step.

[WinZip17]

7. Enable maximum power-saving mode and run the laptop on battery power.

Is this step is a must? Triager with a Windows machine says he doesn't have a laptop to do that step.

No. It happens to me under any conditions, consistently, 10 out of 10. Any power mode, on any graphics card (both integrated and RTX).

[ilya-fedin]

No. It happens to me under any conditions, consistently, 10 out of 10. Any power mode, on any graphics card (both integrated and RTX).

Can you provide a task manager screenshot with RTX load?

[WinZip17]

Can you provide a task manager screenshot with RTX load?

animations disabled

[WinZip17]

In the video, 10–15% of the GPU and video encode is video capture. But even with this, the GPU load is visible.

2026-08-29.12-00-00.mp4

[ilya-fedin]

Okay, the GPU usage itself, as it happens, isn't a bug. Qt sends the CPU-rendered content to the system via GDI BitBlt function which is offloaded to GPU since Windows 7. The only bug here is that disabling animations doesn't prevent redraws and that seem to be a regression since 5a39484.