What to know

  • Battlefield 6’s high CPU usage can spike above 80%, impacting system temps and stuttering.​
  • A simple configuration file (“user.CFG”) directly in the game folder helps limit usage to your true core and thread count.​
  • Values in this file must match your CPU’s physical cores and logical threads—check with Task Manager.​
  • Following this fix frequently halves CPU load, keeping temps down while performance stays smooth.​

Battlefield 6 has shipped with a notorious reputation for overwhelming CPUs, especially in the main menu and large multiplayer matches. If you’ve noticed relentless high CPU usage (often pegged at 70–90%), this isn’t just your setup—it’s a widespread issue. Luckily, the most effective solution only requires simple changes in a text file, as demonstrated by several trusted Battlefield YouTubers.

Why does the Battlefield 6 CPU bottleneck happen?

Several reports confirm that Battlefield 6 doesn’t always efficiently scale its workloads to match your processor’s capabilities. During both menus and live gameplay, this leaves CPUs overtaxed and system fans spinning loudly, with little change to actual framerates. The root cause lies in default thread allocation, which may overutilize all available CPU threads by default.​

How to correctly set up user.CFG for your processor

Getting Battlefield 6 to play nicely with your specific CPU is as easy as editing (or creating) a user.CFG file in your game’s install directory. Here’s how to get it right:

Step 1

Open Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc), go to the “Performance” tab, select CPU, and note both “Cores” and “Logical Processors” values.​

Step 2

Open Notepad and create a new file. Enter these five lines, swapping numbers to match your own CPU:

Thread.ProcessorCount X
Thread.MaxProcessorCount X
Thread.MinFreeProcessorCount 0
Thread.JobThreadPriority 0
GstRender.Thread.MaxProcessorCount Y

Replace X with your number of CPU cores and Y with your number of logical processors. For example, if your CPU reports 10 cores and 20 logical processors:

Thread.ProcessorCount 10
Thread.MaxProcessorCount 10
Thread.MinFreeProcessorCount 0
Thread.JobThreadPriority 0
GstRender.Thread.MaxProcessorCount 20
Step 3

Save this file as user.CFG (not .txt!) in your Battlefield 6 installation folder. On Steam, it’s typically:

...\Steam\steamapps\common\Battlefield 6\

If using the EA App, place it under your usual EA Games directory.​

Step 4

Relaunch Battlefield 6 and monitor CPU usage in-game. Typical results show average CPU usage dropping to 30–40% (previously 70–90%), with zero loss in framerate and a much quieter system.​

Common mistakes and troubleshooting

  • Always check for typos and ensure the filename is exactly user.CFG (with no extra file extension).​
  • Using .txt instead of .CFG will cause the fix to fail.​
  • If you upgrade your CPU, update these numbers for best results.​

Real-world results after applying the fix

Players across recent videos have reported seeing their CPU usage fall by more than half after this quick tweak, often experiencing smoother gameplay, less thermal strain, and comparable framerates to unmodified setups. Menu and multiplayer CPU draw both improved, making the game friendlier for both high-end and mainstream hardware.