So I launched the game all excited, entered my information, logged in, named my character, and about the time I got the multiplayer screen, my rig started to sound like it wanted to take off. I checked, and my GPU was pegged at 100%, and the temp had climbed to 100C (that's another problem in and of itself, I likely need to reseat the heatsink, but the card does idle around 65C). Now the menu looks nice, but there's no reason why it or the 3D background behind it should be pegging a Radeon 4850 at 100%.

Anyone else noticed this?

If it is anything like World of Warcraft's screen, it'll run at max capacity at non-game screens since it's not dealing with physics, sound positions and such. All it has are graphics to draw. I'll see if I can get an answer on this one.

It looks like this issue is known and something is in the works. Unfortunately I don't have much details at this time.

Theoretically your GPU fan should keep your GPU cool regardless of what it is doing on load. It's supposed to run code at whatever clock speed the manufacturer set your card to. If the StarCraft and World of Warcraft menu screen heats up your GPU, I don't have much faith in its cooling. It'd probably be worse if you tried to run something like Furmark.

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One thing that's important to understand is that as you put a GPU under increased load, heat will rise regardless of the cooling you've set up. Even liquid coolers will see a rise in temperatures with top notch machines. To be perfectly honest, even on my air cooling system, I spent a large amount of time ensuring it was cooled correctly, so imagine my surprise when my GPUs rose to levels above that Futuremark tests and heavy-duty video games put on them.

The problem is that the menu screen doesn't require much rendering power at all and is putting unnecessary strain on the components being used to render it. Even with an adequate cooling system that prevents substantial amounts of overheating... From the end-user perspective, it draws some concerns due to the amount of time you'll spend in the menu in StarCraft II, compared to World of Warcraft where you spend very little time in the menu.

A major issue here could be that any person who doesn't have intricate knowledge of their GPU or didn't assemble it themselves with a certain degree of skill could easily have their GPU exceed temps of 125°C, which is generally accepted as the 'very bad place' for temps. All over a menu! If I wanted to stress my GPU temps and cooling then for the time being, SC2's main menu seems like a good choice.

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Which is why it's being worked on from what I've heard. It does make you wonder what will happen when GPGPU apps become a big thing. If using a video card can make it run that hot compared to the CPU, what would GPGPU programs do when we finally have to crunch numbers on it repeatedly? :)

Lowest graphics setting makes it draw even faster so that's not really a solution. If your video card driver supports vsync, you can try forcing that on. It will force a framerate cap across the board.

I'll have to study it a bit tonight at home. Unfortunately my work computer doesn't quite play the game that well to generate heat. :)

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It doesn't seem to be a problem with hardware though. As ATI and nVidia cards are both having this issue.

I've never experienced anything like it, this does not happen in the WoW menu by the way (since someone mentioned it earlier)

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My work computer is bogged down by extra tools that I run so it's not going to push the game to run at full speed or anything decent. Home is where I can monitor in greater detail. I don't have access to QA labs so I can't bum off one of their computers.

The 80s aren't unusual for a current generation card while it's under load. It's high but not in any danger zone. GPUs operate at much hotter temperatures than CPUs. Of course you'll want to check the GPU vendor for more details on what your specific model can handle.

Hi Shin.cnc, Nitrous.nine,

I've made a fix for this issue that should make its way unto the next beta patch. In the mean time however, there is a workaround that might get you up and running.

Quit the game first, then look under your My Documents/Starcraft II Beta folder, you should find a Variables.txt file there. You can open this file with your favorite text editor such as Notepad, and add the following line:

frameratecap=60

This will cap your framerate to 60 in the game, which should give your videocard some breathing room. You can put any number, see if a lower number like 30 helps as well, though you will lose framerate.

This is only a temporary workaround, an upcoming patch will have an automatic solution for everyone.

Hope this helps!

Glad it helped Sydarm.

For reference, simply quitting the game before changing the file should be enough, no need to restart the computer.

Have fun!

Woo! Devs are now in the house :)

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Hi I did the fix you posted on the last page and it works when I'm idling SC2, but when I'm in the menu my fans are still acting crazy. I will wait for the patch, but I wanted to check to make sure my GPU temp is okay (I'm not a comp savvy person and I don't want to overheat anything).

http://www.aww-kittah-aww.com/up/files/1296/GPU.JPG

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Your fan speeds are based on the driver profile or whatever your manufacturer set thresholds to. You could try lowering the number from 60 to 45 and see what happens.

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Quick followup question (thanks again for the quick response to this issue): Should we remove the frameratecap line from Variables.txt once your fix goes in?

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I'm thinking it's going to be something like Vsync support. The framerate cap mimics some of the features a bit to keep things from going overboard.

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Quick followup question (thanks again for the quick response to this issue): Should we remove the frameratecap line from Variables.txt once your fix goes in?

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Removing the frameratecap would be useful in the sense that it will help confirm that the upcoming automatic fix isn't an epic fail :-).

Other than that, leaving it in there is pretty harmless, you will simply be giving up the ability to play at more than 60 FPS, which is not noticeable for most players.

There are 2 different frame rate caps, one for in game and one for the Menus (glue)

Frameratecapglue=xx (for menus)
Frameratecap=xx (for everything else)

AdamS be our leader. Well not the dev's leader, but our leader. :P

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Why Blizzard inst doing something to fix this problems, we the Mac users are in serious problems oh overheating.

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Why are you in the PC forum? Go to the Mac forum.

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Has this issue been addressed in Patch 11+? The reason I ask is I just installed SC2 beta and I am patched to version 0.13.0.15250. During the game menu my Geforce 9800GT gets to about 107C. I read previous posts that this was supposed to be fixed in a patch release.

DB

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The 9800GT isn't supposed to get that high for any reasons. They usually top at anywhere between the 80s and 90s if you run them down. You have a really bad cooling problem on that card and should contact the manufacturer for help. The hottest NVIDIA cards are the GTX 400 series and even they don't run up that high.

As for the fix itself, it's in. You can tweak it with the framerate limiting variables that are found at Known Issues - Technical Support related http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=23280198115&sid=5000 if you need to. I wouldn't do it though; you're just waiting on another app to run your video card down.