Starcraft 2 fries your GPU.

[racofer]

Sounds like a lame excuse from people with cooling problems or something, right?

Well, the only difference is that Blizzard itself acknowledged the bug:

• 
  Blizzard Confirms StarCraft II Overheating Bug
  
  StarCraft II has been one of the most anticipated games in the last half dozen years and now that it’s here and upon us something was bound to happen. Has StarCraft II melted your machine yet? Blizzard has officially admitted that it’s a known issue and that there is a fix to it all.
  
  StarCraft II’s menu screens aren’t framerate-limited, which means that when there’s nothing else happening, your graphics hardware renders the shit out of those screens, causing some bad overheating problems. Not to worry though the fix-up is easy, requiring players to add only a few of the following lines to your “Documents\StarCraft II Beta\variables.txt” “Documents\StarCraft II\variables.txt” file (nice catch, commenter LegolElf):
  
  frameratecapglue=30
  frameratecap=60
  
  From Blizzard Customer Service:
  
  

  The installer allows multiple copies of the game to be installed
  
  Unlike previous Blizzard installers, this one will always let you install another copy of the game. It does not check for previous installations so be careful of how many folders you end up making.
  
  Compatibility Modes will not work properly
  
  Attempting to run StarCraft 2 on a compatibility mode (Windows XP SP3 from Windows 7, for example) will make it crash. Please run the game normally.
  
  Certain screens make your hardware work pretty hard
  
  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. A temporary workaround is to go to your Documents\StarCraft II Beta\variables.txt file and add these lines:
  
  frameratecapglue=30
  
  frameratecap=60
  
  You may replace these numbers if you want to.
  
  User report – Security program flagging the beta downloader as a trojan
  
  We had some reports where a security program might flag the beta downloader as a trojan. It is a false positive.
  
  Black Screens
  
  There have been multiple reports of black screen issues being related to the use of a Quick Cam webcam.
  
  In some cases exiting out of the software has resolved the issue but others have reported a need to uninstall the software for the camera in order to resolve the problem.
  
  There are also reports where some security programs like Comodo firewall can cause the game to start and stay on a black screen.

  
  For those poor people that installed the game before reading this, we feel your pain as it has happened to one of our staff, so a heads up from Blizzard would have been nice before the problem got out of hand.
  
  If you’re one of the few people that didn’t purchase Blizzard’s StarCraft II, you can view the specs for the game here.
  
  via [US.Battle.Net]

 

[MetalCraze]

If you’re one of the few people that didn’t purchase Blizzard’s StarCraft II

 

[Markman]

Noticed that the GPU was working like crazy even in the main menu.Nice catch.
Only this game and Heroes of Neverth makes my GPU fan turn to overdrive. Its like having a vacuum cleaner by your feet.

 

[Genma:TheDestroyer]

I'd wondered at some of the numbers I was getting during normally light load moments.

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

Huh? My GPU hasn't been working that hard, although I noticed that the computer has been going into cycles where it blows a shitload of air into it while playing SC2...

Urgh... Way to go, Blizzard.

 

[Norfleet]

Heh, I've run into these sorts of issues in other games that will just churn as many unusable frames as it possibly can, so it's not a uniquely Starcrap problem.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Retards, this shit was in beta and they blamed it on nvidia.

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

Then how come my computer is way cooler while playing SC2 after I applied this hotfix then?

 

[Black]

Fire it up.

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

I want Firebats to be in the Multiplayer, gosh darn it.

 

[JarlFrank]

So that's why I had a BSOD yesterday after a long session of SC2. Heh.

 

[Murk]

This is... strange, Blizzard's always been good about making sure their games don't have AIDS (from technical standpoints), why the sudden lapse into retardoland?

 

[racofer]

This is... strange, Blizzard's always been good about making sure their games don't have AIDS (from technical standpoints), why the sudden lapse into retardoland?

Judging by the campaign, brains has been pretty much non-existent on their end.

 

[Volrath]

This is... strange, Blizzard's always been good about making sure their games don't have AIDS (from technical standpoints), why the sudden lapse into retardoland?

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

The true Firebat.

 

[ChristofferC]

I noticed that my GPU got really hot when I tried the beta with custom AI.

 

[Xor]

This is... strange, Blizzard's always been good about making sure their games don't have AIDS (from technical standpoints), why the sudden lapse into retardoland?

Blizzard games are always as buggy as anything else on release. Main difference is they actually patch their games.

Also, it sounds like this is only a problem if your system isn't adequately cooled. You could burn out your GPU on anything if it's allowed to get too hot.

 

[oldmanpaco]

I didn't even realize SCII was out.

 

[jazzotron]

So that's why I had a BSOD yesterday after a long session of SC2. Heh.

As did I. And explains why I was sweating in the middle of winter! (southern hemi)

 

[MapMan]

Theres simply no default FPS limit and if you have a shit GPU with even shittier cooling then when its stressed for too long it overheats.

 

[Silellak]

This is pretty fucking hilarious.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

If a graphics card overheats simply because it is under 100% utilization, its the graphics card's fault. Plenty of games will render at 300 FPS while you are doing nothing in menus.

 

[1eyedking]

Fuck that made me laugh

 

[ChristofferC]

If a graphics card overheats simply because it is under 100% utilization, its the graphics card's fault. Plenty of games will render at 300 FPS while you are doing nothing in menus.

They skimp on the cooling because almost no game stresses the GPU to 100%. There are benchmark apps that will stress your GPU way more than most games.

 

[MetalCraze]

Well even with overclocked GTX260 I wasn't having problems in SC2 at all - turbine wasn't spinning like mad either - Crysis and AA2 apply much more pressure.

But still Blizzard messed up with an engine hard.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

My computer doesn't burst into flames but it definitely heats up the video card more than most games. Hovers around 80C and gets up to around 50-60% fan speed.