Tag: Blizzard

  • Nothing to See Here: Starcraft 2 is NOT killing graphics cards.

    Nothing to See Here: Starcraft 2 is NOT killing graphics cards.

    With the launch of Starcraft 2 on July 27th, 2010 people were excited to get their hands on this long awaited game.  Development of the game started in 2003 and had been delayed or postponed several times due to other games Blizzard was producing at the time.

    Since the launch minor issues have been growing, and today Blizzard Confirms an overheating issue. However, this story has been spun by the technology community even to the point where Slashdot picked up on it.  It has been given menacing sounding titles such as “Is Starcraft II bad for your graphics card?” by ZDnet and “Is Starcraft II Killing Graphics Cards” by Slashdot. A much more appropriate title to the actual problem is one given by OverClockersClub “Starcraft 2 causing some GPU’s to Overheat

    The problem is that during some of the in-between mission screens, cut screens and menu screens are not frame capped like the actual game play is.  This causes the GPU to render these screens as fast as possible.  Since these screens are simple and, for the most part, static, the computer has an easy time and is able to render these very quickly causing the GPU to heat up.  This increased heat and power consumption exposes flaws in Starcraft II players’ computers, causing crashes, reboots, and even some claimed GPU failures. (more…)

  • Blizzard Says No To Accountability, Yes To Anonymity

    The floor recognizes Mike Morhaime. Mr. Morhaime?

    Hello everyone,

    I’d like to take some time to speak with all of you regarding our desire to make the Blizzard forums a better place for players to discuss our games. We’ve been constantly monitoring the feedback you’ve given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums. As a result of those discussions, we’ve decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.

    It’s important to note that we still remain committed to improving our forums. Our efforts are driven 100% by the desire to find ways to make our community areas more welcoming for players and encourage more constructive conversations about our games. We will still move forward with new forum features such as conversation threading, the ability to rate posts up or down, improved search functionality, and more. However, when we launch the new StarCraft II forums that include these new features, you will be posting by your StarCraft II Battle.net character name + character code, not your real name. The upgraded World of Warcraft forums with these new features will launch close to the release of Cataclysm, and also will not require your real name. (more…)