StarCraft II melting graphics cards

By Robert Purchese Published 2 August, 2010

Blizzard offers temporary solution.

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty has been melting graphics cards.

The - literally hot - Mac and PC game ships with no frame-rate limiter, which means processors with "insufficient" cooling will happily burn themselves out.

"Screens that are light on detail may make your system overheat if cooling is overall insufficient," warned Blizzard (via DailyTech). "This is because the game has nothing to do so it is primarily just working on drawing the screen very quickly.

"A temporary workaround is to go to your Documents\StarCraft II\variables.txt file and add these lines: frameratecapglue=30 frameratecap=60. You may replace these numbers if you want to."

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty was released last Tuesday and stampeded to the top of the UK charts. Eurogamer's StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty review is tip-toeing nearer. What will it get, what will it get? Depends if Oli's graphics card melted.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (59) Latest comment 2 years ago

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  • Mcstrife #1 2 years ago

    I thought all those cards shut the system down when they get too hot. That's what happened to me when Trine en Dragon Age character creator pushed my 4850's to 110 C due to a programming error.

  • the_mtfr #2 2 years ago

    Blizzard is silly when it comes to the frame rate, it all started with WarCraft 2 where the scroll speed was proportional to the CPU power.
    Edited by the_mtfr at 02/08/10 @ 16:14

  • butler` #3 2 years ago

    @the_mtfr

    Not as silly as the game speed being tied to the frame rate. (See: every C&C ever.)

  • butler` #4 2 years ago

    Btw can't see this getting more than a 9/10. Surprise me, Oli!

  • Zaiz #5 2 years ago

    Oh wow. That's why my laptop was burning up. Dumbasses.

    @butler`

    This game will get a 10/10 when it deserves a 7/10. Incredibly polished gameplay does not make up for a title that feels like it is a decade old, with a plot driven campaign that is supposed to be "epic", when it is in truth awful. I'm so happy I got a free trial from a friend, honestly.

  • Darren #6 2 years ago

    One of the first things I do when I load any PC game for the first time is either enable or force v-sync on so I've never come across this issue with StarCraft II luckily. I do remember playing a Steam game not that long ago where I'd forgotten to enable v-sync and I was seeing 2,000 fps on the main menu screen. The temperatures were fine though and the framerate never went above the figure either. If that was an imposed limit then it was certainly an odd one!

  • SAMagic #7 2 years ago

    I installed the game and it put the video settings on full, which was fine as I suffered no performance issues at all. Then on the Haven (which has lots of trees that burn when a certain event occurs), "In Utter Darkness" and "All in" levels (which both have lots of units) everything slowed down to a snail's pace and so a game prompt suggested that I reduce the settings. Make up your mind!

    Absolutely loved the game. It has its faults but it's still cracking fun, and I've barely touched multiplayer or the map editor yet.

  • tiny_Eggy #8 2 years ago

    Game is great. Blizzard delivers again.

  • Amblin #9 2 years ago

    So Blizzard is confirming that their software can break your hardware, will they pay for repairs?

    mmm, EULA be damned! Get me Ann Robinson on the phone Herrington! Now Dammit!

  • DrStrangelove #10 2 years ago

    Have they programmed a computer game before? And giving advice how to change the config is all they can come up with? I'm looking forward to playing this game, I was a huge Starcraft fan back then, but this is just embarrassing.

  • Sharzam #11 2 years ago

    The other altertive is not to spend any time in menus . Get to the gameplay GO GO GO!

    On a more serious note, this is not the first game to have this problem it may sound obvious but its normally down to how the engine renders in this case it renders the image then flips it out the problem is that as not much happens on the (relativly static) menu screen the game doesnt need to flip it but the graphics card will do it anyway.As is typical of PC hardware will do the best/fastest job it can.

    I have lost count of the amount of games which have this problem but most of the time the graphics card will either shut down when to hot or simply throttle themselves down to lower there heat. A card should never go above 100°c during normal operation as its dangerous past 90°c on most cards.

    A part of me suspects there must be a bigger issue here if the cards are not reacting to the heat.

  • TheApologist #12 2 years ago

    Hmmm - I am pretty non-technical but this might not be so unusual. Something like this seemed to be happening to me with Source engine games. My PCs temperatures shot up quite quickly and forced shutdowns all the time. I had to fiddle in the bios - there was an option to limit the work my processors were doing. Fixed the temperature problems and games still run fine...

  • NimbusTLD #13 2 years ago

    Hmm, wasn't one of the main advantages of Battle.net to be able to deliver patches to everyone quickly? What's with this workaround Blizzard??

  • UncleLou #14 2 years ago

    I've noticed something isn't quite right when the fan in my Nvidia card went into "airplane starting" mode, but surely something has to be fundamentally wrong with your PC if anything gets fried?

  • WangFu #15 2 years ago

    Surely, nothing a game or application could throw at a graphics card should cause it to melt. This isn't the fault of Blizzard or Starcraft, it's the fault of the graphics card manufacturers. If a graphics card is getting too hot it should throttle its performance back, or it should have adequate cooling in the first place. Obviously.
    Edited by WangFu at 02/08/10 @ 19:06

  • Goodfella #16 2 years ago

    All I can say is, superb game and not a single problem here on my ageing (PC hardware-wise) ATi 4870.

  • Buran #17 2 years ago

    The game runs worse than Crysis with much worse graphics; Supreme Commander, Dawn Of War II or World In Conflict are better looking. The legendary scalability from Blizzard engines failed here.

  • UncleLou #18 2 years ago

    The game runs worse than Crysis with much worse graphics

    Uh, what?

    And SC2 is butt-ugly and runs considerably worse on my PC. DoW 2 looks nicer, arguably, but also runs a lot worse. Playing SC2 here at max settings in 1680*1050 on an aging C2D/260 GTX.
    Edited by UncleLou at 02/08/10 @ 19:25

  • ciril #19 2 years ago

    Haha, it kept crashing my PC for 2 days until I realized.... the fan on my 8600GTS is not working :). No problems in other games... SC2 works fine after I kickstarted the fan too!

  • Goodfella #20 2 years ago

    I'll have some of what Buran is smoking.

  • fredrikpj #21 2 years ago

    So thats why my fans started to increase when in menu

  • Nithron #22 2 years ago

    Surely, nothing a game or application could throw at a graphics card should cause it to melt. This isn't the fault of Blizzard or Starcraft, it's the fault of the graphics card manufacturers. If a graphics card is getting too hot it should throttle its performance back, or it should have adequate cooling in the first place. Obviously.

    Yeah exactly. I'm pretty sure this isn't blizzard's fault. And if it is, the article's explanation makes little sense. Most games aren't framerate limited. So theoretically, running any kind of old game should have this effect. Predictably, it does not.

    Not to mention that every graphics card i've ever owned has just bleeped and/or reset the PC when it gets too hot....
    Edited by Nithron at 02/08/10 @ 21:16

  • George-Roper #23 2 years ago

    Surely, nothing a game or application could throw at a graphics card should cause it to melt. This isn't the fault of Blizzard or Starcraft, it's the fault of the graphics card manufacturers. If a graphics card is getting too hot it should throttle its performance back, or it should have adequate cooling in the first place. Obviously.

    How stupid are you? If you lifted a car off its wheels and held the accelerator down, would you expect the engine to eventually pop? Or would you expect the car to be 'adequately cooled'?

    I was one of those people, having to run at 100% GPU fanspeed and even then only managing to keep itself in the mid-80 degrees mark. On 70% fanspeed I was tipping 95 degrees, which I realize is still under the 'safety' threshold but still too damn hot for me to run it like that for long periods of time.

    I then added the suggested values into the variables.txt file and lo and behold, the GPU temps don't top 75 degrees, on 70% fanspeed whilst maintaining exactly the same client performance.

    Blizzards fault. End of chat.

    Edit: Neg'd for this? You sad bastard :)
    Edited by George-Roper at 02/08/10 @ 22:12

  • Aines #24 2 years ago

    So it was it!! Dammit!!! I was playing SCII and the system kept freezing until it didn't even recognize the GPU anymore! Now I'm stuck with the "Standard VGA Graphics Adapter" and I can't even play Plants vs zombies! Great! I've got a 1500 euros g73jh and I can only use it to flame on the forums!

  • WangFu #25 2 years ago

    "How stupid are you? If you lifted a car off its wheels and held the accelerator down, would you expect the engine to eventually pop? Or would you expect the car to be 'adequately cooled'? "

    I certainly wouldn't expect my computer to melt just because it was sat there with Office or Internet Explorer open not doing anything. There's quite a big difference between a graphics card and a car (although I guess you can't tell the difference), and I'd imagine your car came with a manual saying not to redline it for extended periods. You know what though, it must be Blizzard's fault, those idiotic programmers couldn't program a simple menu system well enough to keep the GPU busy. I hope they give me a refund.

  • Kerome #26 2 years ago

    Look, this is crazy - it's the responsibility of the hardware manufacturer to stop the graphics card from overheating, if a frame rate cap is necessary it should be implemented in the graphics card driver. Calling BS on this article...

  • George-Roper #27 2 years ago

    I certainly wouldn't expect my computer to melt just because it was sat there with Office or Internet Explorer open not doing anything.

    No, of course not but that's not what's happening here is it?

    There's quite a big difference between a graphics card and a car (although I guess you can't tell the difference), and I'd imagine your car came with a manual saying not to redline it for extended periods.

    It's the same point though. Take anything and absolutely crank the fuck out of it for extended periods of time, without any let up and eventually its going to pop.

    You know what though, it must be Blizzard's fault, those idiotic programmers couldn't program a simple menu system well enough to keep the GPU busy. I hope they give me a refund.

    The funny thing is, upon advice from Blizzard the problem has been solved. So tell me again how Blizzard aren't to blame?

  • George-Roper #28 2 years ago

    Look, this is crazy - it's the responsibility of the hardware manufacturer to stop the graphics card from overheating, if a frame rate cap is necessary it should be implemented in the graphics card driver. Calling BS on this article...

    Look, this isn't crazy - SC2 is the only game i've ever owned which has caused my GPU to go into near meltdown, even with me manually controlling fanspeeds.

    How can a piece of hardware that i've owned for the best part of 18 months and that has not encountered this kind of problem before be to blame for SC2 being coded badly?

    Get a fucking grip, you sad Blizzard fanboi. Calling BS on the article, LOL!

  • Seehuusen #29 2 years ago

    ATI needs to move their asses and make a new patch that works for everyone so i can actually play the game....got 2 overkill cards for this game....but the drivers are..."under"kill ? :p

  • UncleLou #30 2 years ago

    Look, this isn't crazy - SC2 is the only game i've ever owned which has caused my GPU to go into near meltdown, even with me manually controlling fanspeeds.

    How can a piece of hardware that i've owned for the best part of 18 months and that has not encountered this kind of problem before be to blame for SC2 being coded badly?

    Just because it's a bug doesn't mean your cooling solution doesn't suck. These things aren't mutually exclusive. Maybe you shouldn't control your fan speeds manually when you're obviously not quite sure what you're doing.

  • darth_paul #31 2 years ago

    *marketing*

    ...the graphic cards dont melt down. they have internal security measures.they just hope that a tabloid runs a story that says "new game melts down your computer";)
    Edited by darth_paul at 02/08/10 @ 23:13

  • George-Roper #32 2 years ago

    Just because it's a bug doesn't mean your cooling solution doesn't suck. These things aren't mutually exclusive. Maybe you shouldn't control your fan speeds manually when you're obviously not quite sure what you're doing.

    LOL! How do you know that i'm 'not quite sure I know what i'm doing'? You haven't got a fucking clue, you sad bastard. I've been building my own gaming PCs for a long, long time. Long enough to know exactly how to maintain them.

    But sure, lets blame the problems with SC2 overheating GPUs on the consumers, even after Blizzard have provided the means to limit the client so that it doesn't cause it to happen.

    /rolleyes
    Edited by George-Roper at 02/08/10 @ 23:41

  • djed #33 2 years ago

    @Roper
    You're an ignorant twit, go away.

    Anyway, in slightly related news, Nvidia has had material/design problems since (at least) the 8xxx (G84/G86). Google 'bumpgate' if you're interested. BTW, any ATI peeps having trouble?

  • George-Roper #34 2 years ago

    You're an ignorant twit, go away.

    I'm an ignorant twit? How do you figure that out, exactly?

    I state exactly how this bug affects my PC and that cunt 'Lou pops up and decides to have a pop at my computer skillz. How is that me being ignorant? Surely its the other way around, right?

    Anyway, in slightly related news, Nvidia has had material/design problems since (at least) the 8xxx (G84/G86). Google 'bumpgate' if you're interested. BTW, any ATI peeps having trouble?

    Anyway, in 100% related news you're talking absolute bollocks. SC2 is the only game, I repeat the only game thats ever caused my GPU to get hammered in such a fashion that it required the fanspeed to run at 100% to settle at mid-80 degrees.

    Bar none.

    With multiple 120mm fans controlling airflow in the case.

    And that's including running Company Of Heroes and Dawn Of War 2, which in DX10 and AA/AF required the GPU fanspeed to be set at 75-80% to achieve mid 80 degrees.

    As soon as the Blizzard fix was put in place, everything dropped back down to expected levels. So for all your Blizzard apologist bullshit, kindly go fuck yourself. Their shoddy code allowed this to become a problem, not 'faulty' Nvidia hardware.
    Edited by George-Roper at 03/08/10 @ 00:46

  • xenoss #35 2 years ago

    What a strange thing to happen in the 2010 PC gaming scene.

    Makes me wonder how much Blizzard has changed from the old days... is the Blizzard now still the same masterful Blizzard in days of old? Clearly not.

  • Spekingur #36 2 years ago

    Well now. That's a silly little problem to have.

    Quoted from Blizzard's own site:
    "Certain screens make your hardware work pretty hard. Screens that are light on detail may make your system overheat if cooling is overall insufficient. This is because the game has nothing to do so it is primarily just working on drawing the screen very quickly."

    This seems to point towards a problem with the game rather than just the manufacturers of affected graphic cards. For example, why would the required measurements needed to take to make sure nothing happened to your card not be in already? Especially for such a serious issue one would think that an emergency patch would be up already.
    Also, they must have realised that this might cause a problem allowing the game to utilize the graphics card so heavily whilst the game is 'idle'. Why would they not already have a frame-cap in place for 'idle mode'?
    Edited by Spekingur at 03/08/10 @ 02:01

  • deano2099 #37 2 years ago

    Let's get this straight:

    The bug that is working graphics cards more than necessary is Blizzard's fault. They've issued a workaround for anyone it's causing problems with. Those problems should be, at worst, restarts as the graphics card temperature limiter kicks in and shuts the system down. And as long as you haven't got a clogged up fan or restricted airflow or anything else around the card, that shouldn't happen either. The fan should just go quicker. Graphics cards are designed to run at full pelt where necessary.

    If the card is burning out, that's the graphics card manufacturer's fault. It should shut down before it reaches that point.

    To summarise: cards being overworked unnecessarily: Blizzard's fault. Cards then dying because of this: GFX card's fault.

    George, I fail to see what your issue is:
    "On 70% fanspeed I was tipping 95 degrees, which I realize is still under the 'safety' threshold but still too damn hot for me to run it like that for long periods of time. "

    So on 70% speed it was running at a temperature that was okay and wasn't going to hurt anything. You just didn't like it.

  • craziii #38 2 years ago

    my old ass 8800gt from pny was set to 30% fan speed always, it had alot of problems with all games till I got rivatuner. now I am happily using 5850 with a fix fan speed at 75%. seems to work well enough.

  • Sunyavadin #39 2 years ago

    *Sits back, vindicated in the choice to wait for the boxed set of all 3 campaigns, and the inevitable string of patches which guarantee flawless peformance by then*

  • Kerome #40 2 years ago

    Still, clear that the article headline is BS. It's not SC2 that's melting graphics cards, it's having inadequate cooling and rubbish graphics cards drivers that don't do the right thing to protect the card. It's not a game dev's responsibility to look after weakly configured PCs.

  • UncleLou #41 2 years ago

    I state exactly how this bug affects my PC and that cunt 'Lou pops up and decides to have a pop at my computer skillz. How is that me being ignorant? Surely its the other way around, right?

    Nah, it's just your usual ignorant self, going into nerdrage and calling people fanboys and stupid left, right and centre. You are a bit of a twit, not exactly a secret.

    To summarise: cards being overworked unnecessarily: Blizzard's fault. Cards then dying because of this: GFX card's fault.

    Exactly.
    Edited by UncleLou at 03/08/10 @ 07:44

  • Gelgamek #42 2 years ago

    Initial comment that sparked George Roper's forehead slapping rants:

    Surely, nothing a game or application could throw at a graphics card should cause it to melt. This isn't the fault of Blizzard or Starcraft, it's the fault of the graphics card manufacturers. If a graphics card is getting too hot it should throttle its performance back, or it should have adequate cooling in the first place. Obviously.

    I don't see anything there saying SC2 doesn't make your GPU run hot, just that your GPU should automatically shutdown if the temperatures get critical. Deano2099's post sums it up beautifully.

    Seems like George Roper's got a hard grip on the wrong end of the stick and decided to spray out puerile unpleasantries simply because he can't read very well. Too busy pissing your pants in childlike eagerness to get that next oafbrained shit-nugget of an idea out on the internetz so you can show everyone how smart you are George? Too bad there's a massive disconnect between your intended effect and its consequence. Next time try taking a deep breath and actually reading things properly before acting like a petulant twat.

  • mingster #43 2 years ago

    Lol @ George Roper what a spastic.

  • BootLace #44 2 years ago

    A graphics card should be able to run fully utilised without over heating, regardless of whether it's currently limited by poly throughput or pixel bandwidth. I don't see how this is a software issue.

  • Hypercube #45 2 years ago

    While George Roper does have some valid points, and seems to know some things about the tech issues related to this forum, he's almost entirely lacking in charm, tact or forum etiquette.

  • Softie2k #46 2 years ago

    @Kerome

    Still, clear that the article headline is BS. It's not SC2 that's melting graphics cards, it's having inadequate cooling and rubbish graphics cards drivers that don't do the right thing to protect the card. It's not a game dev's responsibility to look after weakly configured PCs.

    How is it clear? You've presumed that the people having problems are all stupid? How is that inadequet cooling supplied? By top end cards which you then have to shell out more money for extra cooling. This isn't an CPU Fan replacement, we're talking about £350+ cards that are going over 90 degree's simply because Blizzard didn't give the option in-game to limit FPS to prevent cards from cutting the power to your PC.

    The card is fully protected, what are you talking about...The cards are designed to cut out at certain temperatures...And 'weakly configured PC's' ?... I give up...

  • kangarootoo #47 2 years ago

    @George Roper

    I think you got negged because you were talking nonsense. I've just gone to read the rest of your posts, and you can clearly be filed under "angry person who won't accept they are wrong", so no doubt this will fall on deaf ears.

    Your car wheels analogy in particular is missing one crucial part, which fortunately has the same name in both instances. The driver. A better analogy might be a driver that, when he finds himself sat in a car the wheels of which have been raised from the ground, floors it regardless and breaks the engine. THAT would be a rubbish driver would it not, and you certainly wouldn't blame the guy sat on the back seat saying "take me to the shops" (well, perhaps you would, but you would be mad).

    What got me to this post was I was about to going the "hang on, that sounds like the fault of the graphics card to me" camp, when I happened upon your ill advised, rather too grumpy, and far too self important ramblings (I don't care how many gaming PCs you have built, it clearly doesn't qualify you to comment about how hardware should be designed and built - I don't want to burst anyone's bubble here, but as technical tasks go, building a home PC is trivial).


    Quite simply, game software should not be able to instruct a grpahics card to break itself. If it can, something has been overlooked in the driver and/or the hardware of the card. Several people tried to tell you this, and they are right, whether you believe that to be the case or not.

  • kangarootoo #48 2 years ago

    @Softie2k

    I think the point being made is that no GFX card should be able to go over 90 degrees just because a game told it to do so.

    I don't know why everyone is getting so arsey about this issue. Is that what happens when PC builders feel their technical abilities are being slighted?

  • Softie2k #49 2 years ago

    Like I said, the GFX does cut out when it's too hot...It's nothing to do with the way people have their cards set up. The cards are not damaged, they just generally won't display the graphics.

    I had to alter my cooling system to support SC2, I feel sorry for the non-technical people that bought the game and have no idea what the problem is. For that chump Kerome to say that they are 'weakly configured' is unwarranted and for a multi-billion dollar company like Activision Blizzard to develop a game for 12 years and not add the frame limiter is a joke.

  • kangarootoo #50 2 years ago

    Hang on a minute, the cards don't get damaged? So what is this all about?

    "which means processors with "insufficient" cooling will happily burn themselves out"

    This article seems to make card damage pretty clearly a result in some cases.
    [link url=http://www.dailytech.com/Hot+Starcraft+II+is+Frying+Graphics+Cards+Blizzard+Issues+Temporary+Fix/article19224.htm
    ]http://www.dailytech.com/Hot+Starcraft+I...[/link]


    If the cards are shutting themselves down due to overuse, well I suppose that might be Blizzard's fault. But if they are suffering damage as a result of being given "too much stuff to do", the blame for that HAS to lie with the card vendor.

  • George-Roper #51 2 years ago

    @Kerome

    Still, clear that the article headline is BS. It's not SC2 that's melting graphics cards, it's having inadequate cooling and rubbish graphics cards drivers that don't do the right thing to protect the card. It's not a game dev's responsibility to look after weakly configured PCs

    Then why has Blizzard issued advice on how to 'throttle' the SC2 client to avoid this happening? And why, in over 20 years of PC gaming is SC2 the very first game to have had this effect on my hardware?

    You might have a point if this problem was prevalent but its simply not. Even DX10 powered games, such as DoW2 don't punish GPUs in the same way that an 'unfixed' DX9 version of SC2 currently does.

  • George-Roper #52 2 years ago

    @UncleLou

    Nah, it's just your usual ignorant self, going into nerdrage and calling people fanboys and stupid left, right and centre. You are a bit of a twit, not exactly a secret.

    Yet you're the one who assumed I lacked skill in managing fanspeeds and decided to put it out there as fact. You have no idea what my background or expertise is, so how can you state that I must not understand how to maintain my system? How is that anything other than a knee-jerk opinion, based on...nothing? The very epitome of ignorance.

    I'm not ignorant. I know exactly how 'healthy' my gaming PC is, both on the hardware and software side.

    And oh noes! It's not a secret that i'm a twit on a fucking gaming website. What will I do?

  • George-Roper #53 2 years ago

    @mingster

    Lol @ George Roper what a spastic.

    And again, oh noes! Gaming website SC2 fanboi called me a spastic! Heaven forbid that anyone says anything bad about SC2, eh?

    I don't know what's worse, being called a spastic in public or you using the posh version of the word.

    You have an 'official' SC2 thread to help maintain. Why don't you go back there and continue to mutually masturbate with all the other regulars? I mean, rather than posting anywhere else whilst clearly lacking any fucking degree of objectivity about this very apparent, obvious and confirmed problem with SC2.

  • George-Roper #54 2 years ago

    @Gelgamek

    I don't see anything there saying SC2 doesn't make your GPU run hot, just that your GPU should automatically shutdown if the temperatures get critical. Deano2099's post sums it up beautifully.

    Seems like George Roper's got a hard grip on the wrong end of the stick and decided to spray out puerile unpleasantries simply because he can't read very well. Too busy pissing your pants in childlike eagerness to get that next oafbrained shit-nugget of an idea out on the internetz so you can show everyone how smart you are George? Too bad there's a massive disconnect between your intended effect and its consequence. Next time try taking a deep breath and actually reading things properly before acting like a petulant twat.

    The point is that the game should not make your GPU run that hot in the first place. Prevention is better than the cure, you fuckwit.

    Also, whilst we're at it i'd like you to name me one switched-on PC gamer who'd be happy to let their GPU hit the ceiling and then 'shut off'. Do you even know what 'shut off' means? BSOD? Hard lock? Is that a good way to manage PC hardware, in your book?

    There was no 'massive disconnect' to my response, whatsoever. SC2 should not be pushing GPUs into the 90-100 degree mark. Blizzard recognizes that and has issued a fix, which we'll no doubt see rolled into a patch. I've implemented this fix and have seen an immediate change in temps. There's nothing else to discuss. Blizzard are squarely to blame.

  • George-Roper #55 2 years ago

    @kangarootoo

    I think you got negged because you were talking nonsense. I've just gone to read the rest of your posts, and you can clearly be filed under "angry person who won't accept they are wrong", so no doubt this will fall on deaf ears.

    Your car wheels analogy in particular is missing one crucial part, which fortunately has the same name in both instances. The driver. A better analogy might be a driver that, when he finds himself sat in a car the wheels of which have been raised from the ground, floors it regardless and breaks the engine. THAT would be a rubbish driver would it not, and you certainly wouldn't blame the guy sat on the back seat saying "take me to the shops" (well, perhaps you would, but you would be mad).

    The 'driver' in that scenario is the SC2 client. Nothing is telling the client to stop hammering the shit out of the GPU. Its the equivalent of a brick on the accelerator.

    Then I come along and implement the 'fix'. Suddenly the brick only has 1/3 its weight, resulting in the engine not being pushed as much. Hence the engine cooling can handle the load and things will go much more smoothly.

    What got me to this post was I was about to going the "hang on, that sounds like the fault of the graphics card to me" camp, when I happened upon your ill advised, rather too grumpy, and far too self important ramblings (I don't care how many gaming PCs you have built, it clearly doesn't qualify you to comment about how hardware should be designed and built - I don't want to burst anyone's bubble here, but as technical tasks go, building a home PC is trivial).

    Ill advised, you say? How's that then? Again, just like 'Lou you presume to know something of my expertise so lets hear it?

    You're talking shit, just like the aforementioned poster. You are about as uninformed about the level of my ability as you can possibly be, yet still feel it pertinent to negatively comment on it. You've no idea how many PCs ive built, or of what complexity.

    Quite simply, game software should not be able to instruct a grpahics card to break itself. If it can, something has been overlooked in the driver and/or the hardware of the card. Several people tried to tell you this, and they are right, whether you believe that to be the case or not.

    And there we have it. No, it should not be able to, on that we agree. Yet SC2 does. On both Nvidia and ATI cards. As widely reported.

    So who's actually at fault here? Nvida and ATI hardware, that has been going for how many years? Nvidia or ATI drivers, that have been supported for how many years? Or a brand new game, released only days ago to widespread reports of GPUs being stressed on a variety of hardware from laptops to desktops to towers? I guess all the affected hardware is just insufficiently cooled, right? Manually setting a GPU fan to run at 100% speed is 'ineffective cooling' is it? So how do you get better, without custom cooling?

    Ummm, I just can't figure out what's more likely to be at fault here. Oh, hang on Blizzard have confirmed the problem with a vague statement about 'insufficient cooling', along with providing the means to throttle the game without losing any performance.

    I don't know why everyone is getting so arsey about this issue. Is that what happens when PC builders feel their technical abilities are being slighted?

    Brilliant. Yes, of course it is.

    Here's why people are arsey. Nobody likes a BSOD. Nobody likes a hard-lock. I would never dream of just letting my GPU hit its temp 'safety limit' knowing it will shut-off because its not just the GPU that's affected, is it? Ever had HDs die because you have to pull the plug? Or perhaps have system components like RAID controllers pop? Come to think of it, why do we even need a 'power off' button? If everything has 'safety' built into it, why not just pull the plug when you're done?

    Prevention is better than the cure. Fix the source of the problem. Blizzard did that. It fixed the problem. Job done.

  • WangFu #56 2 years ago

    The 'fix' is a workaround for the issue, and doesn't mean they're at fault. A graphics card's job is to render graphics as fast as it can, within safe temperature limits. If it can't manage this because it's going to get too hot then it should scale back its performance to remain within those limits. i.e. the framerate should drop. You're seriously telling me that if a graphics card cannot support rendering a menu screen as fast as it possibly can without damaging itself then it's the fault of the person writing the menu screen.

    Obviously I'm not going to convince you here, nothing I can say will do. I'm definitely not saying it's your fault, or that your computer is badly cooled, etc. so stop acting like that. I'm saying that your graphics card manufacturer has developed a product which cannot render a simple screen with the framerate unbounded. A task that it should be able to handle easily. This is a fact. If it cannot handle rendering over a certain framerate then it shouldn't try to, it should have its own internal cap.

  • deano2099 #57 2 years ago

    A hard-lock should be the worst possible scenario. Where the GFX shuts off to avoid damaging itself. This shouldn't happen: cards are built to be driven at 100% power full time and not 'burn out'. They're not cars. But that's under the specified circumstances in which they're sold: not overclocked, with the stock cooling solution, the clearance they're meant to be given for airflow, no 2 year's worth of dust build up in the fans and at the specified operating temperatures.

    The hard lock / shutoff is there because some people use their cards outside of the specs. It's a safety feature so the card doent' die if you overclock the hell out of it, or run it in a very hot case or room, or stick it in a HTPC case or something. They should never burn out, and I haven't seen one confirmed report of this happening (and I'd wager if it has, it's with people who decide they know better and manage their own fan speeds and do custom overclocks).

    Seriously, if it's possible to write a piece of software that physically damages graphics cards, you think the virus writers wouldn't have done it already? You can't leave running temperatures up to the software because not all software can be trusted to be benign. You have to put the safety features in hardware. Anything else can be exploited. So if they fail, it is the fault of the card manufacturer. Sure, it wouldn't have happened without the bad software, but graphics cards are meant to be a safe enough playground that you can't damage them.

  • kangarootoo #58 2 years ago

    @George Roper

    "The 'driver' in that scenario is the SC2 client."

    No, the 'driver' is the graphics card driver. That is the piece of software that tells the graphics card what to do. The SC2 client isn't talking direct to the hardware, it is talking to the card driver (probably via a third level such as Direct X). I thought you knew about this sort of stuff.

    You see, you say we don't know anything about your level of ability, but your comments show that is is lacking. Just like is somebody told me how to rewire a plug, and I KNEW that what they were telling me was wrong, I would by deduction learn something about the depth of their knowledge.


    As for whose fault it is,for me it is quite simple so hopefully you will understand it. No 3rd party client software should be able to drive a card so hard it breaks. If a graphics card is melting during normal use (by normal use I mean that the card vendor's own drivers are being used and the card is being supplied with the normal voltages), that is the fault of the graphics card vendor, every time. The SC2 client might well hammer the card, but the card sw/hw should not allow that action to physically break the card.



    "Here's why people are arsey. Nobody likes a BSOD. Nobody likes a hard-lock. I would never dream of just letting my GPU hit its temp 'safety limit' knowing it will shut-off because its not just the GPU that's affected, is it? Ever had HDs die because you have to pull the plug? Or perhaps have system components like RAID controllers pop? Come to think of it, why do we even need a 'power off' button? If everything has 'safety' built into it, why not just pull the plug when you're done?"

    You see, this is why I am finding this thread so boring. Its like pushing through a sandstorm of random badly formed metaphor, trying to find a grain of sense. Yes everything has safety built into it, but what on earth were all your various "have you ever had something break because you abused it" examples for? Are you trying to impress me by letting me know you have RAID controllers in your home PC? The safety factor that is missing here is in the gfx card, as I have described above as simply as I can, so what purpose was all the rest of that paragraph serving?

    Goodbye.

  • Amblin #59 2 years ago

    I have to say Blizzard dropped the ball on this. Who in their right minds designs there software to run at max fps when idle? Now imagine this on a console? whould it have happened? No! Why? Because it wouldn't make it passed QA.

    I know of no other game I own that does this. That's a lot of games btw.

    I still can't believe that SC2 hasn't been patched to add this simple fix. While I understand you may want a higher refresh rate for 3d you don't need more than 60 fps period.

    2000fps on an idle screen? wtf. As to anyone trying to lay blame at the gf cards, they aren't designed to run at 100% for 24hrs. There is a limit to any hardware and shoddy software programming shouldn't be defended.

    Luckily for me watercooling means I can do this but for most vanilla cards this oversight by blizzard will cause nothing but grief.

    when the gf shuts down you can get a lot of secondary failures, hard locks corruption of HD's etc.

    Blizzard dropped the ball. End of. apply the fix and protect your PC Hardware. Don't debase yourselves by bickering.

    See in the stars folks, Feel free to pwn me at your leisure. =)