For those that can't understand why they can play some "graphics intensive" games with no problem but this one causes overheating, here's the deal:

A computer has a lot of different components: CPU, GPU, memory, etc... Each of those components may have a lot of subcomponents. (e.g. GPU has geometry shaders, vertex shaders, pixel shaders, memory, maybe a physics coprocessor, etc...).

When you run a particular game at its highest framerate, it is very unlikely that it will run all of those components at their highest load. In fact, many may not be used at all. Instead, you will drive ONE (sub)component at 100%, and the others will be bottlenecked by that one component and just run as fast as needed to keep the pipeline fed.

Which component is the bottleneck, and how hard the other components have to run, is going to vary from game to game. Maybe a game does a lot of CPU computations every frame, and the GPU doesn't get used much at all. Maybe you have a lot of small triangles with simple shading, so the vertex shader gets used a lot but the pixel shaders don't. Or maybe you have big triangles with lots of textures and glowie effects, so the vertex shaders don't get used a lot but the pixel shaders do.

Whichever is the case, assuming the driver writers know what they're doing, the unused/less used components are going to draw only a fraction of their max power levels, and therefore run at a fraction of their max temperature.

But sometimes, you're going to find a game that uses a lot of these components, and does so in a way that they're pretty load balanced. So its got one component running at 100%, and a bunch of other components running near 100%. And *boom* suddenly the PC that ran fine with all those other games that didn't push every component hard starts overheating.

It's not the game developers fault for using every bit of power available on your system. Its your fault for not cooling it right.

Yea I will request for a refund on this game, after playing the beta and almost burning my comp, and no I don't believe a comp should be at 100% for a long period of time. It';s like saying I should take my 5.0 Mustang and be in redline RPM for a long period of time, it will mess up the car. The game is a failure your programmers failed on correcting this. And I have a comp that can play this well, and I JUST build it and with performace fans and my CPU is at 60C and my GPU is at 110C, yea eff that.

Sorry guy's I'm not buying this issue. I have written programs for DirectX for almost 6 years now and I have never seen DX software that was capable of causing hardware damage. In fact I can think of several games, Flight Sim X for example, and applications, RenderMonkey comes to mind, that use as much if not more card power then STO for far longer periods of time. I also reject the notion that hardware be it a GPU, CPU, or hard drive was not designed to run near 100%. You don't think guys developing shaders don't run their graphics cards near 100% all day long? What about database servers or developers (although I would argue this is poor system design from a server prospective)? I think this issue comes down to a couple of things:

Hardware installation & cleaning: If you installed the card yourself are you sure it was done properly? Is hot air coming off of a different fan right on to your GPU? Do you have adequate cooling? When was the last time you cleaned your power supply and inside of your case?

Graphics Settings: Are you overclocking your system a bit too much? Do you have your graphics set beyond what your system can handle? Maybe your system just isn't designed to handle running STO set to max. Do you have the latest graphics card drivers? Maybe the drivers you have came with a bug.

Bottom line: I have been running STO on my laptop(8600m) now for almost a week including almost 10 hours straight yesterday without any heating issues. I don't have my graphics set to max but they are set to pretty darn good:-) Personally, I wouldn't mess with the FPS because you have no idea how that might effect code that Cryptic has written that is FPS dependent. If you are having problems tone down the graphics settings. You might also try upgrading drivers because its possible that the graphics drivers are bugged.

I would also challenge anyone who thinks that I'm wrong on this to post over on Microsoft's DirectX developer forums http://forums.xna.com/forums/ or Nvidia developer forums http://developer.nvidia.com/forums/index.php asking about the potential for software to cause hardware damage.

You know, STO isn't even in release yet. It's still beta. The last series of patches did a good number of optimizations for GPU load. Do you make all of your gaming purchases/subscriptions based mostly on beta?

As for 100% GPU usage, you are correct. You don't want to be at 100% perpetually because there's no need to with some system tweaking and upgrades. For STO, I have no problems with GPU usage with my vertical sync enabled. But I do have a more expensive video card. If yours is struggling to make 60+ FPS average, then turn down your graphic settings. If they're all the way down and your video card is still struggling, then you obviously didn't head the minimum requirements or the community's advice all over the forums ever since closed beta.

But your comparison to redlining an internal combustion engine with peaking a processor at 100% is a fallacy (apples and oranges). GPUs, CPUs, and other processors are just fine being peaked at 100% for extended periods of time provided you have adequate cooling. Companies running servers do this all of the time for years before a serious failure. However, if not adequately cooled, your processor(s) are going to overheat. That's your fault, not Cryptic's.

Thats what servers and developer computers do all day long, work near 100% for 16+ hours a day. Most computers only have 3 or 4 moving parts (hard drive and fans) whereas your Mustang has thousands. Futhermore, computers ARE designed to work at 100% your Mustang is not.

Why don't you give us more information about your setup so we can see if we can solve your problem.

Ok ill play, I have a 8800GTS that has a Zalman fan on it, and a 5200+ duel core 2.2 GHZ CPU with also a Zalman fan on it, I use 10 brand new fans, pointing the right way it should. And I don't play the game on max settings. But when I do play STO, my software shoot warnings at me telling me "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER!!!!" And i imminently shut down STO

For everyone out there

A game can NEVER, EVER kill your card. I have no idea where this idea is comming from that if you type /showfps in the game and it says 0, your card is in danger.

NO GAME - EVER can kill a card.

TWO things and TWO things ONLY will kill a card:

1a)Improper cooling (due to clogged fans and heat syncs) or bad fans. This also includes improper case cooling
1b) 95% of the cards on the market will SHUT OFF before the memory or GPU gets to the point of being damaged. Although repeated use at high temps will shorten the life of the card

2) You don't plug it in properly and turn on the computer and blow it out or somehow hold it wrong and static fries it.

There are many other moronic ways to kill a card, but no game, no software can kill it (short of software deliberately overwriting the card's bios/nvram)

all limiting the fps in the game does is put a limit on the load the game puts on your card, and this can help some cards that are not properly cooled.

But whomever started the thing that if the game says 000 fps you are in trouble is dead wrong. Mine shows 0.000 and fraps shows over 145fps at MAX game settings in 2560x1600 and I'm running 2 Nvidia 295s for Quad SLI

You know you can't tell these guys anything. They're experts and there's no way it's their machine. The're perfect and STO is at fault. If this is how these people act toward something they don't understand in a simple game, I would hate to see how they are in real life.

you are so dead wrong. ANY comp out there should and is made for the CPU and GPU to run at MAX 100% load 24/7/365. If a system can't it is because 1) the owner has not taken proper care of the machine by regularly cleaning the fans, heat syncs, and air pathways, 2) the machine was flawed in it's design

This isn't like a car LOL.

If you just built a machine YOURSELF and your CPU is 60c and GPU at 100c, you did one CRAPPY job building that rig, or you bought some CRAPPY parts.

I can run my system at 100% everything, and nothing ever even gets CLOSE to dangerous - especially with this game. CPU never over 50c and GPUs between 40-60c

If I were you I would rebuild my machine, making sure you put proper paste between the cpu and the heat sync, and if you are OCing your system, then don't OC it. Or OC it with bigger and better fans or possibly water cool it.

But any system that is not OCed, and kept in proper order will NEVER, EVER overheat from this game.

Yep. I'm a computer engineer. I started out as a tech, then network engineer.. then worked for companies designing chips, cards, and mobos.

Like a said, it's NEVER EVER a software's fault for burning out ANYTHING in your system. Even one of those torture test benchmarks.

It's always a few things:

Owner error in not maintaining their machine
Owner building a maching thinking they know what they are doing, built it wrong or use cheap/faulty parts
Namebrand machine that is improperly built
Lastly, just plain faulty HW