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DaiBenduMonk's avatar
DaiBenduMonk
7 years ago

Star Wars Battlefront 2 Overheats my new laptop Instantly on minimum settings

I just bought a laptop that was released this year, that everyone's saying is one of the best for gaming on the market, and I can't even play my favorite game on lowest setting without it turning into a kitchen appliance.

It's a (2018) ASUS ROG Zephyrus M GM501. After watching many reviews trying to pick the best cooled, all around slim laptop in the market, that could run games easily as well, I chose it and bought it.

The laptop has an Intel i7 - 8750H CPU @ 2.2GHz, a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 GPU and a 144Hz monitor.

Sadly, even after mentioning all these accolades currently playing EA Star Wars Battlefront II (2017) is near impossible. I guess I could, but for no more than a couple of minutes at a time, before I melt my hardware parts.

When I'm idle or browsing the internet, or writing this post, it's usually pretty quiet and cool, standing around 45-55 degrees Celsius.

 

But as soon as I try booting it up the game, Battlefront II specifically, something just goes wrong, or is this normal, I have no clue?

 

The fans seem to go into overdrive, everything just heats up in seconds. By the time the main menu opens up I am running 80 degrees Celsius on both CPU and GPU, and it doesn't go away. I'm not even in a match, I'm just sitting in the main menu, where nothing seems to be happening and it's still this hot, by the way, this is all happening while the lowest graphical settings have been chosen.

 

Once I get into a match that's where all the fun begins, and my laptop turns into a hotplate. Constant fluctuation between 82-85 degrees Celcius on both GPU and CPU (on lowest settings selected).

 

If I follow Nvidia's GeForce Optimization, which turns out tells me I can play the game on Ultra, we are looking at constant 85+ degrees Celsius, fans going like crazy. The detail and frame rate seems decent, there's not a whole lot stuttering or anything like that (yet), as I have this laptop for only a couple of days, all the hardware is still brand new. Game looks beautiful, worthy of the Frostbite engine's name and the GTX respectively. But the heat, the noise is always there. Like the laptop is working overtime. I guess on Ultra it's to be expected to a degree even on this laptop, but I get exactly the same results when I put on the Lowest settings, 25% resolution scale included, it doesn't matter. The heat, the extreme fan noise, it's all there. The difference between top and lowest settings is at maximum a couple of degrees Celsius, you can't tell a difference.

I'm still waiting for reply from ASUS, but I thought I'd give it a shot here, maybe someone could help me out or would have a solution for this. I'm more of a console player so this is all kind of new to me. I wanted to play Battlefront II on PC, also learn how to use Nvidia Ansel to make screen captures and possibly cinematics, but how can I do that, when the laptop's on fire by the time I even reach the main menu.

I really hope somebody can help me out here.

5 Replies

  • Groovy-Music's avatar
    Groovy-Music
    7 years ago
    - Create a text document that you'll rename User.cfg
    in C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\STAR WARS Battlefront II or, inside your game install's folder.

    - Open User.cfg with Notepad and put: GameTime.MaxVariableFps 72


    ( If it still overheating with 72, try 60 or 45 or 31 )

    The power of the force is too much for a 144 Hz 2018 laptop
  • DaiBenduMonk's avatar
    DaiBenduMonk
    7 years ago

    Thanks for replying.

    I think that's a great idea, I wonder if it could actually work. However the game doesn't seem to recognize the "user.cfg" file, or take it in consideration. Every time I run the game, I still get around 120-200fps in the menu. So, still looking for solutions.

    It sucks that Nvidia doesn't offer frame limiting options, at least I haven't found them. Even in the Nvidia Control Panel. The only time I kind of got the game to run at 60fps, was through GeForce Experience and its whisper mode, but that also limits the fan cooling so you still end up running hot.

    Best solution I've had thus far was decreasing the "Maximum processor state %" in Processor Power Management in Adcanced Power Settings to like 60%. There seemed to be less heat for an extended time. But then after a while the screen would get a "little blurry" in technical terms, once I made sudden turns in the game controlling a character. No idea what was that all about, not enough power flowing to the processors? Maybe I'm just seeing things.

    But yea give Nvidia inspector, I've seen some videos that it should help decreasing the FPS.

  • Groovy-Music's avatar
    Groovy-Music
    7 years ago
    Well.... I just tried the game and the console variable GameTime.MaxVariableFps is not working at all anymore!?

    I don't know why and when it stopped working... It's also an appreciated variable in other Frosbite's games, such as Battelfield, FIFA and Mirror's Edge Catalyst..

    My advide:

    Download and install the very useful, critically acclaimed freeware called "MSI Afterburner" on Guru3d.com with its monitoring companion "RivaTunerStatisticServer" (RTSS).
    Next, add starwarsbattlefrontii.exe to the list of applications in RTSS and put 72, 60, 45 or 31 in the Framerate Limit box.

    It works
  • DaiBenduMonk's avatar
    DaiBenduMonk
    7 years ago

    Thanks I’ll look into it. Decreasing the power flow to the processors has been quite good. I’ve contacted people at ASUS, updated my bios there seems to be less heat now.

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