Hello forum. I hope you are all well.
I am taking a moment to share a problem I had with the game Starcraft II.
As I moved from single player to multiplayer, I wanted to get the best performance possible to be as competitive as possible. While I live in a region of the world where it usually gets over 40 degrees celcius (104 F for our American friends), I also have a capable air cooling configuration to mitigate it, incluiding an A/C for the room where the computer is located.
Even so, while moving from the computer room to the kitchen (as it was supper time) I left the system with the monitor turned off, but the C.P.U. tower on, at the main Starcraft II screen (the one where the battlecruiser appears every once in a while, and then enters FTL speed... it sometimes changes depending on your most recent achievement, like finishing the single player campaing).
I turned back to find out the computer was off, which I found rather odd.
The C.P.U. monitor software that came with the gigabyte motherboard reported an overheating problem, and that it had turned off to prevent damage. As I kept on reading, I found out it was specifically the graphics cards that overheated.
I quickly took a dive to manuals and forums, and found out that it is a Starcraft II related problem. Apparently it happens more often when you turn down the graphic details, for the graphics card renders the same frame as fast as it possibly can, overheating it. This is ENTIRELY a software problem.
I found out this entry from wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starcraft_2#Overheating_video_cardsIn it, you can read more details about it, as well as the solution for it. Just to leave this topic nicely integrated, I will copy and paste the instructions to fix the problem.
A temporary workaround is to go to your Documents\StarCraft II\variables.txt file and add these lines:
frameratecapglue=30
frameratecap=60
Notice how it says it is temporary; I hope the next patch gives a better fix. Also notice how you have to look for the "variables.txt" file on your DOCUMENTS folder, not the program files/starcraftii folder (just a friendly tip, as it is natural to look for it at the program files folder).
I have applied the fix, but I rather not test it again, and just never leave the game idle. I also do not go down from "medium" details anymore, and have left on a software called "fraps" (which keeps an eye of framerate in real time) for the time being, just in case.
My system specs are:
-AMD Athlon II X3 435
-500 gb hard drive
-2gb ram
-ATI 5750 xfx 1gb graphics card
-600 watt P.S.U.
-21.5 " samsung monitor @ 1920x1080
-Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H motherboard
Welp, that is it. I hope this tread helps out avoiding any possible scares.
-Arc
