Please Help. Overheating GTX 970

[Kitty de Winter]

Hi, I am not a techy person so please be gentle with me :)

I run the game and it looks beautiful and works fine but the computer fan starts running extremely loudly which worries me so much I can’t play it.

I did auto detect and these were the settings it suggested (It has the issue with these settings): {LINK REMOVED}https://snipboard.io/zqEIQX.jpg

{LINK REMOVED}https://snipboard.io/Mx5W7d.jpg

I ran Speccy and here are the results. {LINK REMOVED}https://snipboard.io/Ed0yih.jpg

I can see that the GTX 970 graphic card is reaching 82 Celsius. Is this why the fan is so loud?

Tried the Graphics settings on high and it still reaches 82 Celsius if there is water in the scene.

Game would be playable on medium, but it is such a shame after seeing how beautiful it is on high.

Feeling confused because the game was released in Dec 2014 and my brother built my computer in 2015 and I was told it had a very good graphics card for the time - have the game graphics been updated since then or something? Why is my 2015 ‘good’ graphics card having trouble with a Dec 2014 game?

Why is the game suggesting these high & ultra settings if the machine can’t do them?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. :)

[Harry Poster]

The game has been using updated engine since last year, which affects performance on older PCs.

[Latharion]

Try running one of the "legacy" builds of the game. To do that, right click on the game in Steam, select the "Beta" tab, then select the drop down arrow and select a build of the game that you want to run (in this case try the "pre-2017 legacy build"). That should help out quite a bit.

A 970 should run the game just fine. It may not have some of the newer features that the new builds of the game are utilizing. I ran the game great on a 470 GTX with zero problems and at a pretty good frame rate at 1080p

[Harry Poster]

Running legacy version you'd have to start new game from scratch. Saves are not back compatible.

[ma.hirsch]

I would recommend cleaning the computer first.
Maybe it's dusty, then you won't get a real one
Ventilation.
Do you have the latest updates and graphics drivers installed?

[Latharion]

You can also try changing to DirectX 11 mode. To do that, run the game, then select "Options" and then "Graphic Options" and the "Graphics API" and select "DirectX 11". The default is usually "Vulcan" which could possibly lead to issues. It's worth a try, and if it doesn't work out, you can just reverse the setting.

[Kitty de Winter]

Thanks guys for your response.

I have tried the legacy version. The fan is less loud but the GPU still reaches 78 Celsius in standard gameplay and gets to 82 Celsius when pools of water are on the screen.

Silly question but does updating the game engine update the graphics?

[Kitty de Winter]

Will try vacuuming it and look into the Direct X thing, thanks.

[and that's that]

turn off dynamic lights, they cause a lot of heat because they keep rendering shadows as you move. go to customize >> then uncheck the use dynamic lighting box

also lower your FPS, 60 fps with vsync is perfect, or if u want a custom value that isn't in the game you can do it from nvidia settings for the game

you can use high settings even on weak computers as long as you turn off the really heavy stuff like dynamic lights and dynamic shadows. anti-aliasing is also heavy, but it might be necessary if there is lots of annoying flickering at edges of textures. ambient occlusion is fine to keep, but the blurs are unnecessary

[Latharion]

Originally posted by Kitty de Winter:

Thanks guys for your response.

I have tried the legacy version. The fan is less loud but the GPU still reaches 78 Celsius in standard gameplay and gets to 82 Celsius when pools of water are on the screen.

Silly question but does updating the game engine update the graphics?

You mean running the game in Vulcan mode or DirectX 12 mode instead of DirectX 11? It should not have any impact of graphics fidelity if that is the case. The main reason for switching to Vulcan was for cross compatibility between different platforms and some nice behind the scenes stuff. I ran my 470 in DirectX 11 mode for quite awhile and I had a good experience with it. I was using a higher-end cooling solution for it so it didn't ever hit more than 60c.

[Karl Marx (ص)]

Set a proper custom fan curve with MSI afterburner(dont care about your GPU brand afterburner is the best), clean your GPU heatsink and make sure you have a proper airflow through the case. if you want to make sure you have a good airflow remove the case panel and see if the temp drastically changes or not. other than these I doubt that there is anything wrong on software level it's just this game is awesomely optimized and utilizes your GPU to the fullest even with the 3.5 GB slow VRAM that 970 has. Vulkan and DX12 offer more performance with higher power consumption compared to DX11. 72-74 C is the normal temp for your GPU if it's not top of the market cooler. a reference/blower style cooler can hover around 72-75 C at best with full utilization on APIs like Vulkan and DX12. Have fun and good luck with the issue. btw you can limit your FPS with Vsync or lower the power limit of the GPU if the temp is really a concern for you. 82 is not good but danger zone for Maxwell (900 series) and majority of hardware is ~97 C.