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Is Starcraft II bad for your graphics card?

By | July 31, 2010, 9:31am PDT

Summary: One of the most anticipated games in years, Starcraft II is so hot that it can burn up your graphics card. Literally. The blockbuster has a strange bug that can make your card render the menus over and over again until it overheats. The issue is that the menu’s frame rate is unlocked, which could send [...]

One of the most anticipated games in years, Starcraft II is so hot that it can burn up your graphics card. Literally.

The blockbuster has a strange bug that can make your card render the menus over and over again until it overheats. The issue is that the menu’s frame rate is unlocked, which could send your graphics board into a tizzy when it has nothing to do but keep rendering the menu.

Luckily, there’s an easy enough fix to limit the zapping to the game itself and not your PC. Look for the variables.txt file that’s found in the Documents\Starcraft II folder and make the following additions:

frameratecapglue=30
frameratecap=60

That will solve the problem until Blizzard Entertainment releases a patch that pours some frozen water on that bug. The company is aware of the problem and has noted it in a Known Issue thread on the game’s technical support forum, saying the following:

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.

[Via Game Informer]

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Video Card, Graphics, Video Cards, Games, Hardware, Components, Personal Technology, Sean Portnoy

Sean Portnoy is a freelance technology journalist.

Disclosure

Sean Portnoy

Sean Portnoy is a freelance technology journalist; currently, all work that Sean does is on a contractural basis. Sean has also written corporate communications documents for CA.

Sean does not accept gifts from companies he covers. All hardware products he writes about are purchased with his own funds or are review units covered under formal loan agreements and are returned after the review is complete.

Biography

Sean Portnoy

Sean Portnoy started his tech writing career at ZDNet nearly a decade ago. He then spent several years as an editor at Computer Shopper magazine, most recently serving as online executive editor. He received a B.A. from Brown University and an M.A. from the University of Southern California.

Talkback Most Recent of 12 Talkback(s)

  • RE: Is Starcraft II bad for your graphics card?
    LOL
    ZDNet Gravatar
    X41
    31st Jul 2010
  • I think that should be...
    "pour" not "pore"
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Zonker_z
    31st Jul 2010
  • RE: Is Starcraft II bad for your graphics card?
    So, a bug that makes your GPU run at 100% load for the duration of gameplay.

    If your card can't handle this, there's something wrong with your hardware.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    quantumcipher
    31st Jul 2010
  • RE: Is Starcraft II bad for your graphics card?
    @quantumcipher that's what I was thinking lol. But people with laptops might not like this as 100% gpu usage on a laptop usually means a lot of heat
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Jimster480
    31st Jul 2010
  • Even with a laptop...
    @Jimster480 .,..100% utilization should not "burn up" your hardware but only cause reduced battery life. I'm of the opinion that any piece of hardware should be able to handle sustained 100% utilization without "burning up" unless it was either 1) basically overclocked to begin with or 2) didn't have adequate cooling.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    cornpie
    2nd Aug 2010
  • RE: Is Starcraft II bad for your graphics card?
    @quantumcipher Yeah, well - the video card market is pretty competitive, and very few games right now actually push the high end cards to their absolute limits.

    I really haven't seen a game that pushes cards to their limits since the release of Crysis. Dunno why, but it seems there's not as many games pushing for super realism anymore.

    Not saying that the video card manufacturers should be lazy - but it's a bit understandable.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    CobraA1
    1st Aug 2010
  • RE: Is Starcraft II bad for your graphics card?
    @quantumcipher Bingo. If the card can't handle 100% load it needs to be thrown in the trashcan.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    itguy08
    2nd Aug 2010
  • Yes, if you have old hardware
    There's opinions and then there's facts but an eye opener for me is Valve's Hardware Survey (the page changes over time):

    http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/

    In short, there's a LOT of old hardware out there. A year ago I noticed that a notable percentage of people were utilizing an ATI graphics cards from 2003. If you click on "Video Card Description" it will break things out. However at this point Valve has "Other" as a category with "24%" (June 2010 hardware survey). I would be very curious to see that broken out and all the old hardware thrown into that bucket revealed.

    I should also point out the Steam store consistently has the original Counter-Strike within the top 10 games selling for under $10:

    http://store.steampowered.com/browse/under10

    Why is this noteworthy? Because Counter-Strike uses the Half-Life1 engine which came out in 1998! Counter-Strike: Source utilizes the Source engine which debuted with Half-Life 2 and at this point is six years old. In other words, you don't need a high end graphics card to see good performance there. Even so, you have people buying a title en masse based on 12 year old technology. In short, there's a LOT of old hardware out there and this issue surfacing within StarCraft II isn't all that surprising.

    -M
    ZDNet Gravatar
    betelgeuse68
    1st Aug 2010
  • RE: Is Starcraft II bad for your graphics card?
    @betelgeuse68 Yup, their HW survey is very informative about the stats of the PCs of most gamers.

    I think netbooks may have also helped games using the HL1 engine - netbooks can't handle Source games, but they can certainly handle the original HL1 engine.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    CobraA1
    1st Aug 2010
  • RE: Is Starcraft II bad for your graphics card?
    @betelgeuse68 Hilarious, I tried to edit my post (because of a typo) a day later and it seems the post was reported as SPAM. Just because I references URLs to Valve's site.

    Read the message people! Duh!

    -M
    ZDNet Gravatar
    betelgeuse68
    2nd Aug 2010
  • Let the makers of starcraft take responsibility,
    let them put out a patch TODAY, if two registry tweaks alleviate the core issue.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    HypnoToad72
    2nd Aug 2010
  • RE: Is Starcraft II bad for your graphics card?
    What kind of video card did they use to test the game before release? Unbelievable! http://www.videocardroundup.com.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    simonctg
    9th Dec 2010

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