SH5 damaged my video card.
 

Hi All,

My first time posting here. I recently got into the SH series (about two months ago), starting with SH4 and then purchased SH5.

I love SH5 and what the mod community has done with it so far, especially TDW GUI mods.

Unfortunately, SH5 seems to have damaged my video card and I wanted to post here about it to give people a heads up.

I didn't realize what was happening til it was too late. During nearly all of SH5's gamplay, my Geforce 260 GTX ran at 100% GPU, usage. I know this because I have finally begun using a hardware monitor that displays on-screen during gameplay.

The first sign of trouble was when I would look at ships that were on fire. There would be stuttering and my video card fan would go crazy. I thought everything was fine and the fan was taking care of business.

Unfortunately, the video card fan speed did not increase when it should have before this time. It just heated up to 100C+ and then start spinning faster. Overtime this caused damage to my video card.
I have read other posts about people with Geforce 260's who have stuttering problems. PLEASE BE CAREFUL. This game is not optimized very well and it can damage your hardware.

Now, my question is... I have purchased a Geforce 570 and I am wondering if any of you guys have that card or something similar and how your performance is with SH5.

My video card is being shipped to me currently, so I am just curious.

-Whiplash

P.S. We seriously need a frame-rate limiter to lower excess heat.

If you slower the graphing settings (in game) then i think your video card will not run anymore at full capacity:hmmm:

Good point. I did try lowering all of the settings and re-ran my tests.

The GPU still runs at 100% except when using the navigation map.

It could be a graphics driver issue (yes, I have the newest ones). However, every other game I've played runs smoothly.

use v-sync

Stoppro,

I see you have a Geforce 580. How well does it work with SH5?

I do use v-sync, which keeps it at 60 FPS. I think that is a bit excessive. 35 would be fine to me.

In fact, I think the fact that it is constantly trying to maintain 60 fps is one of the issues causing my overheating.

Run at 32 fps
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/down...o=file&id=2871

Name it please.

EVGA Precision has a hardware monitor option.

I'm not sure if you need an EVGA card to use it, though.

Thank you. I'll give it a shot soon.

EDIT: That significantly reduced the GPU usage. I wish I had known about that about two weeks ago. Good tip!

I have never had an issue with the gtx580 and I run alot on realtime it doesn't seem to stress it all and it's running on auto. and the graphics are great

Actually, it was not the game that ruined your card, but the crappy Nvidia drivers. I have the same vidcard, GTX 260, but I'm controlling its heat with RivaTuner, which ramps up the fan speed with the GPU temperature. Without this external control, the fan would stay at 29% until the card gets past 100 degrees Celsius. Be warned that you will get the same behavior with any Nvidia card, including your GTX 580, because it's not the hardware itself (the card), but the drivers, which do not know how to adapt fan speed to the core temperature.
Just google for "nvidia fan control" and you'll find plenty of posts explaining both the issue and the solutions. And BTW, EVGA precision only monitors the temp, but does not increase the card fan speed. RivaTuner, OTOH, does both functions: it displays the temperature on screen and controls the speed of the fan.

Good to know. Thanks!:salute:

Here is a guide on configuring RivaTuner to get the job done. Unfortunately for other subsimmers who might be interested, it's in Romanian, but for you I know it's OK:03:

http://www.mygarage.ro/ghiduri-si-tu...olosire-7.html

I'm sure there are also English-language guides available on the internet.

Thanks dcb (multumesc frumos)!

I will read this guide right away!

Noted.

I used to have EVGA Precision 1.9.1 or something like that (up until yesterday). However, their newest version allows you to customize a temperature/fan RPM graph, which is kind of neat. So basically you get to determine at what temperature you want the fan speed to increase and what speed you would like it to increase to.

I have also recently download Rivatuner. EVGA Precision uses part of Rivatuner's software for itself. It's basically a less sophisticated version of Rivatuner.

I think it was lack of knowledge of what my video card was up to that caused the damage.

That said, I still think SH5 is not a well optimized game. I have an extensive programming background, and when I see my GPU usage go to 100% and stay there with no fluctuation, that is an indicator that something is wrong.