Over-Heating

from GalCiv2 Forums
My computer has been over-heating when I play GC2 with the resultant occasional crashes. Drivers are up to date, PC is a p4 2.8 800 fsb on an Asus p4c800 deluxe mb and I have 1gb of dual channel paired pc3200 corsair ram and a radeon 9600 pro video card (almost 4 times min specs and almost 2 times the recommended specs). I have tried tweaking all the video settings to try to keep it from over-heating, right now I've got every video option turned off, but still at 1024x768 res, turned off the anti-aliasing and still it climbs to 106+ degrees F even when I have a household fan blowing in the front of my PC to increase air flow.

WHY in the world does it get so hot?!?!?

I understand that there is a lot to process, but it shouldn't be doing very much during your turn, it should do all the processing when you press turn button, and since the avg turn takes me about 10 mins (once there is that much to process as the begining of the game really doesn't have a lot to process) and the process time only 10 seconds there should be more than enough time for it to cool back down during my turns, especially when I've got the increased air flow.

If anyone has had similar problems or has a solution or even an idea to try, let me know
7,510 views 16 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Have you updated to 1.0x? I believe that patch was suppose to fix the overheating with the throttling feature (don't turn this off in the option, it doesn't hurt performance).
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The graphics, believe it or not, are "teh uber". They use EVERY option they get, and go past 100 degrees. It's the graphics card, not the game itself.

1.0x fixed it
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've actually had a very different experience. My laptop runs very hot while playing other games (DDO, Fear, etc.), but pretty cool with this one, even running max resolution and graphics.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The graphics, believe it or not, are "teh uber". They use EVERY option they get, and go past 100 degrees. It's the graphics card, not the game itself.


Although mine ocassionally overheats (after > 4 hrs with 1.0X), I find it ridiculous that graphic card companies would release hardware that can overheat (or without enough cooling) when the full potential of the card is in use! It's just plain wrong.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
My understanding is that it has to do with the framerate getting ridiculously high on very fast video cards, so the throttling in the official patch will institute wait states instead of forcing the card to render the same exact thing multiple times in a row.

This is apparently more taxing on the card heat-wise then running a motion intense game like Doom 3, which will produce lower framerates.

-HM
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
GC2 overheats very badly on my laptop- but only when it's charging the battery while I play. I didn't have the problem in 1.0X (I'm running Beta 4 currently). Is it possible that the throttling feature was disable in the beta patches?
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I believe it is not fully Galciv2 on this case, your system is bascially not enough resouces in turn of memories, a 1GB of Corsair (no indication of timers ratio, so presume value ram), with a 9600 (no indication of V-ram size, so presume 128mb at 128bit), if your system are not in a goodshape in turn of memory processing and you didn't close the background program, it will indeed create some lags and problem (if the game becoming intense in graphic, that is intense with big quantities of item rendering in the same time such as major battle between coalitions. As far in turn of TBS game, it is not using intense resources, but like BF2, or other battlelike FPS, it will create some problem if the system is not enough, worse, when you run into PageFile, and your HDD is slow and running at lower mode.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Never mind what I said earlier. I've been suffering those intolarable freeze ups all day, even with my battery fully charged.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

CKayote, do you usually play with the AC Adapter? I've noticed that even at full power settings that my system runs a lot slower on battery. 

sublifer, if you have the gpu throttling turned on, do you have your computer in a cabinet or something that would restrict the airflow? If you're still getting overheating with the gpu throttling, it's probably something with your card or driver.

Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top


Actually I disabled the gpu throttling thinking that it would increase frame-rates (guess I shoulda read the readme). Thanks for the ideas guys, I'll go re-enable the throttle and see how it goes.

btw my computers don't get "value" parts, I've been in working in computer industry longer than most gamers have been through puberty
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've re-enabled gpu throttling and temp seemed to be a little lower (though still over 101 deg's), but 4 rounds back into my saved game I got an unexplained crash. Go figure. Hopefully most gets resolved when they release an official patch.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Sounds like it's time for some special cooling fans to be installed.

You may want to check the area around the cooling fans just to be sure nothing is blocking airflow. Those are pretty high temps, it would make me a bit nervous, to say the least. My CPU was getting up close to 70 degrees C, so I installed a Zalman fan, which lowered it a good 10 degrees. And rearranging two of the PCI cards lowered the video temps by over 30 degrees C. The card that was next to the video card was the tv tuner card, and it generates quite a bit of heat on its own. And it is a full height card also. I swapped it for one of the smaller cards and put it near the other end. The temp change was quite dramtic.

High temps not only cause random crashing, they also cause early component failure.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
yeah, seems like I should install a few more fans... I've got 4 exhaust fans now (CPU, top, back, power supply) but no fans blowing in. I might get a video card cooler as well since there is no active cooling on it. There is plenty of card space. And don't forget, my temp is in farenheit, I don't feel like converting, but i'm fairly sure 100F is less than 70C, if not its prolly around the same.... maybe i should check the conversion.

anywho, i've started a medium map in place of the huge i was playing( aside from those few turns mentioned b4, this is the 1st I've played with throttling reenabled) but temps have increased... i'm seeing ~103.5F now.

are you all sure that throttling is supposed to help? whenever I think throttling, i think of increasing speeds etc..
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
but i'm fairly sure 100F is less than 70C, if not its prolly around the same....


100F is less than 40C, so I think if your hardware is running at 100F we can safely say overheating is NOT your problem. 40C is not bad at all for air-cooling under heavy load--I've never seen my CPU or GPU break 42C, and I'm quite happy with that. My old Athlon Tbird used to run at 60C...
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
yup... I've checked... its 37.8C, but the temperature under normal operations is at 92F, it may not be much, and 11 degree jump, but I'm sure the temp is a factor.

Also not sure if my temp gauge is for CPU temp or ambient case temp, either way it won't be the best gauge for an over-heating video card which is what I'm suspecting. The card is on the older side, so I'm thinking about just replacing it, but that opens a whole bag o' worms with upgrades...
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
41C is 106F if that helps.
That is nowhere near an overheat temp. Heck, that is my ambient case temp right now, so it is no wonder that you can't get it much lower than that. You would have to crank the AC and get the room really cold to lower it, or install a liquid cooling system.

As a comparison to my video card, it is currently at 55C, and it is not doing anything. It will get up to 60-70C easily when I am doing the fleet battles, and the overheat threshold preset by the Nvidia driver is 125C.

I am using an Nvidia 6800 GS OC SE by the way, which is a factory overclocked 6800 GS with a copper heat sink. And it does use a fairly good fan. So your temps are nothing to worry about. I had failed to notice the F degrees you were referring to.