Starcraft 2 > furmark

[EarthwormJim]

Well after trying to figure out why Starcraft 2 was crashing, even with the FPS limited, I determined it was the overclock on my 8800gt.

I've had this 8800gt overclocked to 750/1800/950 for ~2 years now. It's stable in Crysis, furmark, futurmark, you name it. But good lord, it crashes in about 5 minutes in Starcraft 2. It's not even overheating, stays at ~60c thanks to the cooler I have on it.

I had to back down to 685/1750/950 to get the game stable.



*Edit*

Problem solved, wasn't my overclock, was 3d portraits.

 

[Sheninat0r]

There's a fix for it; Blizzard unhelpfully left frame rates uncapped throughout the game, and setting the cap to 60 or 30fps when viewing menus will prevent your GPU from stressing itself trying to render a simple scene at a million frames per second.

Open up Variables.txt in Documents\StarCraft II and add two lines:

frameratecap=60
frameratecapglue=60 (or 30; I think this is the one that caps your frame rate in menus, so if you can deal with 30fps menus then use that)

 

[EarthwormJim]

There's a fix for it; Blizzard unhelpfully left frame rates uncapped throughout the game, and setting the cap to 60 or 30fps when viewing menus will prevent your GPU from stressing itself trying to render a simple scene at a million frames per second.

Open up Variables.txt in Documents\StarCraft II and add two lines:

frameratecap=60
frameratecapglue=60 (or 30; I think this is the one that caps your frame rate in menus, so if you can deal with 30fps menus then use that)

Ya I said I limited the FPS.

 

[MyLeftNut]

A lot of unstable clocks can run fine through furmark, kombustor, and even a lot of games. Try OCCT and run the GPU Stress Test with shader complexity 8 at full screen native resolution. Lets see how long your overclocked cards lasts through that artifact free.

 

[EarthwormJim]

A lot of unstable clocks can run fine through furmark, kombustor, and even a lot of games. Try OCCT and run the GPU Stress Test with shader complexity 8 at full screen native resolution. Lets see how long your overclocked cards lasts through that artifact free.

This was stable for 2 years though, through lots of different games.

It's just funny that this rather ugly game is so demanding.

 

[3DVagabond]

This was stable for 2 years though, through lots of different games.

It's just funny that this rather ugly game is so demanding.

Could be any number of things. Maybe the next driver release (or the previous one?) will bring back the ability for a stable O/C. This is the problem with PC's. It could have been the last Dx update, or .NET update, in combination with the latest driver release, that the game doesn't play nice with. You never know.

 

[Seero]

Well after trying to figure out why Starcraft 2 was crashing, even with the FPS limited, I determined it was the overclock on my 8800gt.

I've had this 8800gt overclocked to 750/1800/950 for ~2 years now. It's stable in Crysis, furmark, futurmark, you name it. But good lord, it crashes in about 5 minutes in Starcraft 2. It's not even overheating, stays at ~60c thanks to the cooler I have on it.

I had to back down to 685/1750/950 to get the game stable.

How old is your PSU and the age of video card, and motherboard?
The FPS cap doesn't do anything. At best it will reduce the temp of the video card during menu screen. It does not fix anything.

The maximum power draw depends on the utilization, not usage. If a piece of code can really be run in parallel, and therefore utilizing all the shaders of the GPU then the GPU will require more electricity. Keep in mind that 100% GPU usage doesn't mean 100% utilization. If the GPU does use more electricity than normal usage, it is possible that the PSU can't supply stable voltage to every components which leads to crashes.

 

[EarthwormJim]

How old is your PSU and the age of video card, and motherboard?
The FPS cap doesn't do anything. At best it will reduce the temp of the video card during menu screen. It does not fix anything.

The maximum power draw depends on the utilization, not usage. If a piece of code can really be run in parallel, and therefore utilizing all the shaders of the GPU then the GPU will require more electricity. Keep in mind that 100% GPU usage doesn't mean 100% utilization. If the GPU does use more electricity than normal usage, it is possible that the PSU can't supply stable voltage to every components which leads to crashes.

It's an 850w Silverstone (Seasonic I believe is the OE). Motherboard is an Asus P55 and a Core i7 860. 8800gt's aren't that power hungry. They only need 1 PCI-E 6 pin power connector.

After some more tweaking, it seems like 3d portraits are the main culprit. I was able to return to my old overclock with 3d portraits disabled and haven't crashed once. I was noticing right before a crash, the 3d portraits would start having some weird distortions and artifacts, and only the 3d portraits. Rather odd.

I was getting a little concerned that this was Nvidia's bump gate issue creeping up on my card since it's getting a little old. Hopefully all is well now.

A lot of unstable clocks can run fine through furmark, kombustor, and even a lot of games. Try OCCT and run the GPU Stress Test with shader complexity 8 at full screen native resolution. Lets see how long your overclocked cards lasts through that artifact free.

It passed that with flying colors. Haven't seen 70c temperatures though in a long time on the GPU.

 

[MyLeftNut]

It's an 850w Silverstone (Seasonic I believe is the OE). Motherboard is an Asus P55 and a Core i7 860. 8800gt's aren't that power hungry. They only need 1 PCI-E 6 pin power connector.

After some more tweaking, it seems like 3d portraits are the main culprit. I was able to return to my old overclock with 3d portraits disabled and haven't crashed once. I was noticing right before a crash, the 3d portraits would start having some weird distortions and artifacts, and only the 3d portraits. Rather odd.

I was getting a little concerned that this was Nvidia's bump gate issue creeping up on my card since it's getting a little old. Hopefully all is well now.



It passed that with flying colors. Haven't seen 70c temperatures though in a long time on the GPU.

If you passed that with shader complexity @ level 8, it should be pretty damn stable. A lot of cards with factory overclocks don't even pass that.

 

[BFG10K]

Could be any number of things. Maybe the next driver release (or the previous one?) will bring back the ability for a stable O/C. This is the problem with PC's. It could have been the last Dx update, or .NET update, in combination with the latest driver release, that the game doesn't play nice with. You never know.

In this case it’s not a problem with PCs. The problem is hardware being run out of spec but people still expect it to function perfectly.

 

[EarthwormJim]

In this case it’s not a problem with PCs. The problem is hardware being run out of spec but people still expect it to function perfectly.

No I'd really disagree. 1 title in two years is the only one that caused instability when multiple games and testing software was run. In particular it is one setting that is unusual in this game, 3d portraits.

With 3d portraits disabled, the overclock was stable. And mind you, last night while playing at stock settings the game did crash once prior to disabling 3d portraits.

There's quite a few Nvidia users having issues with SC2, so there's something up with either the drivers or the game itself.

I mean come on, this is the only game to give me problems, I have ~50 that I've played on this computer that run fine. Yes the card is out of spec, but no other software/games have had any issues.

Regardless, my problem with the game is solved for now. I don't really care about 3d portraits that much, and the game has been 100% stable all day.

 

[kalniel]

Some games use hardware in ways that are atypical. I don't know the technical reasons for it, but NWN was another game that used to cause a lot of people overheating problems, despite it not looking like a terribly demanding game, it seemed to stress subsystems quite badly.

 

[netxzero64]

I don't cap my framerates on starcraft 2 and it does not overheat... =)

 

[BFG10K]

No I'd really disagree.

You disagree with what? Are you running your hardware out of spec? Yes or no?

If you are, how can you possibly blame the game given it functions fine at stock speeds?

I mean come on, this is the only game to give me problems, I have ~50 that I've played on this computer that run fine. Yes the card is out of spec, but no other software/games have had any issues.

This doesn’t mean anything. If the game was still crashing at stock speeds you’d have a point but it’s not, so you don’t.

Again this is not a PC problem, it’s a problem with someone running hardware out of spec and expecting it to function perfectly all the time, and blaming something else when it doesn’t.

 

[EarthwormJim]

You disagree with what? Are you running your hardware out of spec? Yes or no?

If you are, how can you possibly blame the game given it functions fine at stock speeds?

This doesn’t mean anything. If the game was still crashing at stock speeds you’d have a point but it’s not, so you don’t.

Again this is not a PC problem, it’s a problem with someone running hardware out of spec and expecting it to function perfectly all the time, and blaming something else when it doesn’t.

I did say I tested it with stock speeds too, and it did crash. I even bolded it...

 

[blckgrffn]

A problem with SC2 or an issue with hardware drivers? I have $100 on drivers any day, especially considering this is Blizzard and they have been playtesting/beta testing it for months.

 

[Seero]

I'm on BFG10K side. overclock, overvolt, poor cooling, and irregulated voltage all leads to bad capacitors. Each of those impact others, so although OC seems to be flawless, it eventually ages the parts faster. Once the damage is done, all it needs is a trigger.

If a capacitor breaks, the card will cease to function. If they are in a bad shape, the system will become unstable and requires more electricity to run. Chances are, you entire PC are in a bad shape.

SC2 only crashed once during early beta due to driver issue, and I have been playing it almost everyday. It does make my video cards go hotter than usual gaming, but nothing to OMG about, still under 85c while room temp is at 32c.

 

[EarthwormJim]

I'm on BFG10K side. overclock, overvolt, poor cooling, and irregulated voltage all leads to bad capacitors. Each of those impact others, so although OC seems to be flawless, it eventually ages the parts faster. Once the damage is done, all it needs is a trigger.

If a capacitor breaks, the card will cease to function. If they are in a bad shape, the system will become unstable and requires more electricity to run. Chances are, you entire PC are in a bad shape.

SC2 only crashed once during early beta due to driver issue, and I have been playing it almost everyday. It does make my video cards go hotter than usual gaming, but nothing to OMG about, still under 85c while room temp is at 32c.

The card has never seen temperatures higher than 60c other than running that OCCT GPU test (70c), it has an arctic cooling accelero on it. Who said overvolt...

How can the PC be in bad shape when nothing crashes, and SC2 no longer crashes with 3d portraits disabled and the old overclock settings restored.

Does anyone even read through a thread before posting?

A problem with SC2 or an issue with hardware drivers? I have $100 on drivers any day, especially considering this is Blizzard and they have been playtesting/beta testing it for months.

Probably, when I was looking online for others with issues, I was often seeing Nvidia card users (quite a few with G92 too).

 

[peonyu]

Not really surprising, some games stress parts of your card that many apps/games dont use much. I had a similar issue in Supreme commander when I played that...Every game and Furmark that I tried would run flawlessly, except for that game at OC settings. Id just drop your GPU speed by 5-10 mhz. It will likely clear it up.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

This was stable for 2 years though, through lots of different games.

It's just funny that this rather ugly game is so demanding.

parts wear out over time, overclocked ones can wear out faster

maybe if the card didn't already have 2+ years of wear and tear the game would run stable

750 is also unrealistically high for an 8800GT. You can QQ about it all you want but when we consider the stock speed for the 8800GT is 600MHz and most were lucky to hit even 700MHz, you have little justification to cry about it here.

 

[finbarqs]

yesterday, I got my first taste of SC2 slowdown! I'm running a GTX 480, i7-930 @ 4.01, 12GB of 1333 RAM, X-Fi Titanium PCIe Sound card. The GTX 480 was stock too!

Anyways, I was playing as the protoss when I decided to do a carrier attack (I had about 3 rows full of level 3/3/3 carriers! (missing last 3, because I was at 200 already) And Warped in that thing that cloaked units around it... When I was attacking, the game slowed down to a chug. It was unbearable. Starcraft 2, you make my system cry

 

[EarthwormJim]

parts wear out over time, overclocked ones can wear out faster

maybe if the card didn't already have 2+ years of wear and tear the game would run stable

750 is also unrealistically high for an 8800GT. You can QQ about it all you want but when we consider the stock speed for the 8800GT is 600MHz and most were lucky to hit even 700MHz, you have little justification to cry about it here.

AAAh does anyone read posts in a thread? The problem is with 3d portraits, my overclock is fine now.

750 is not unrealistically high (especially with the cooler I have, Arctic Cooling Accelero), and stock on my 8800gt is 650mhz (some even shipped at 700mhz). There's an overclocking thread on guru3d for 8800gt (old thread now), I'd say greater than half of the reports there are 725mhz+ speeds.

 

[3DVagabond]

AAAh does anyone read posts in a thread? The problem is with 3d portraits, my overclock is fine now.

When reading comprehension makes the mass exodus it seems to have here, I usually just end it with "never mind" and a big sigh.

I feel your pain, man.