Massive heat issues in this game only

I don’t know what to make of this issue. I’ve done everything I can on my end to ensure vsync is on, monitor capping fps to 60hz. The heat this game generates is atrocious.

I’ve been lucky to not have any serious crashing or artifacting from over heating…About 15 years ago a certain alpha in an mmo I can’t remember burned out one of my video cards so I’ve been leary about gpu heat issues ever since then I make sure I am running 75% fans when gaming, in every game. I didn’t like how the radeon software was idling fans and not ramping up so I took control.

There has been reports that this unity game engine has issues with True full screen mode, which I believe they call Exclusive full screen mode. This game has the exclusive option listed but it does not work… I know this because in a dual monitor setup, in true full screen mode the mouse cursor should not move to the 2nd monitor without alt tabbing out of the game, but it does. There is no current remedy for this on an end user basis. I’ve tried multiple startup switches, registry changes etc that all should have ensured the game ran full screen mode, but nothing works. Which tells me its not implemented in the game properly or turned off… There is some kind of bug in unity when devs save or compile their latest builds that it won’t change the registry entries properly and thusly use the old saved settings… This is out of end users control… Perhaps the issue is more complex than that even, I don’t know.

So what I’ve read about this full screen mode, and this current overlay full screen mode the game uses, in windows 10, the way the api’s work with the gpu is when in this overlay full screen mode, the operating system renders everything. I.E steam app open gets rendered, browsers, desktop icons etc all get rendered underneath the game… This taxes 10xx or older cards severely, which is causing some extraneous heat for some of us.
I just wanted to point this out because heat will not only wreck hardware over extended periods of time, but the way gpu’s are triggered at certain heat thresholds to power cycle down Mhz to reduce heat, this all translates to poor performance which looks like an un-optimized game. When I don’t think the game is badly optimized per se, its really this overlayed game window and how windows controls rendered cycles of everything…

All I can ask, is for an option to run this game in full screen mode. Im comparing this game to another game of similar graphical theme and intensity, the other game has the advantage of running in full screen mode and the heat of that game is 25 C lower than this game which is hitting high 80s C on a card with only 90 c as a threshold… This coming from a guy who took an hour to pull the gpu out, clean it out and relapse silver paste to make sure things were running as optimally on my end as possible in conjunction with the capped 60hz setup…

If the devs cannot sort this out, may i suggest one of the biggest frame rate killers in games be allowed to be toggled right off… Shadows = 0 global shadows = 0
I would seriously consider re-doing all your lighting in this game to accommodate no shadows at all for those of us who like seamless game play. And as always, for those who want shadows on they can put them on… I do plan on upgrading my gpu from this rx 480, but I have been trying to order one since november 2020… Most of us know about these out of stock issues… and it doesn’t sound like its getting any better with announcements of semi-conductor shortages with the auto sector getting served first priority…

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This game had my RTX 3080 at a steamy 83c last night. HOT.

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i play with msi afterburner and keep an eye on the gpu usage. Normaly, with low settings, the gpu runs with a low clock rate, 50% fan speed, but sometimes it goes up like crazy, mostly after some playtime, then i restart the game and all is fine again

maybe this can help

or try -window-mode exclusive as the start option

I have tried that switch. Doesn’t seem to do anything.
I will mention that right after I posted this, I pulled the side panel off my case and the gpu runs at 70 instead of 84… The case Im using doesn’t have the greatest air flow apparently. Its the Nzxt case with glass side window. 3 fans on the front, 1 big on the back, Im running a water cooler on the cpu which is running really cool and is throwing no excessive heat into the case, but you can fry an egg on this rx 480… I am running low settings on everything, the shadow setting is on the second lowest because anything lower looks terrible.

I hate to have to get back into running the side panel off with a mini fan blowing on the gpu again like I was doing some years back… But it seems like the cheapest and easiest solution at this point.

Try to compare playing Kinkmaker, Battle Chasers, Genshin or any other Unity-game. My experience says that any of Unity-games generate incredible heat, no matter what picture you see on your screen. Seriously, GPU heats even during Pillars of Eternity (1) play.

This card is about the same age as my 1060 - so its, as mine is, beginning to show its age performance wise. The RX480s are also notoriously hot running (google search shows 100 000’s on the topic) so you have to keep that in mind when making your observations and perhaps consider that the issues that the game has (and yes, it does have optimisation issues) could be exacerbated by your setup. Temperatures of GPUs are all relative to their own “norms”.

I am able to run 1080p with all settings on the lowest possible - not just shadows - and my 1060 seldom gets above 70 degree C. I dont think it looks bad at all - in fact, I am quite surprise how good it looks with everything on low when compared to other games “low” settings… I do make a point to keep my hardware clean with good airflow - perhaps excessively so with extra case fans etc.

This is a very bad sign irrespective of what game you are running… You need to sort out the cooling / airflow - a delta of 14 degrees just by taking the side panel off is WAY too big and indicates a problem irrespective of anything you are doing/software you are running. Considering your fan/watercooling description there is something not right in your case - maybe the push pull config etc are fighting with each other or something is blocking airflow excessively.

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