It’s just silly, nearly every game I have burns GPU when the game is idle. Trying out Dune Spice Wars now, and 90% GPU while sitting in an unanimated menu. Last night, the kid left Jusant paused, and instead of the PC going to sleep, it sat at high use all night.
No reason at all for this. OK, I get it, you want to keep some cool animations going behind your menu or pause screen. Still, drop the frame rate and let them die down after a few minutes.
I was a programmer for many years. Memory does not consume CPU or GPU and only minimal power.
It is not technically challenging to handle idle states properly. I’ve had to write software that does so many times, as wasting system resources is just unprofessional for any app other than games. You’re right, there is a reason for it, but it’s organizational. probably the problem is in code nobody wants to touch or burred in 3rd party stuff.