[dba-Tech] Graphic Advice

>From the Starcraftii wiki article

Several gaming and technology sites reported an "overheating bug" with
StarCraft II that in some cases resulted in permanent damage to video
cards. The source of the problem is the fact that the frame rate is
not locked on menu screens. This causes the graphics card to
continuously render the image, resulting in excessive heat. Blizzard
has acknowledged the problem, and posted a temporary
workaround.[82][83][84][85] They also recommended ensuring computer
systems are well ventilated and contacting the videocard manufacturer
for hardware-related issues.[86] In response to the reports,
Blizzard's Public Relations Manager, Bob Colayco said: "There is no
code in our software that will cause video cards to overheat. When we
saw this issue first reported, we conducted thorough additional
testing and determined that for those players experiencing this
problem, the cause is most likely hardware-related."[86] CrunchGear
has also suggested that the problem is not with StarCraft II, but
rather due to poorly maintained hardware and inadequate cooling. They
do however agree that the overheating only occurs on non-framerate
locked screens and provide the fix that Blizzard has offered to
users.[87] Other articles recommend that users regularly clean the
dust out of their computer to improve the cooling efficiency of their
systems.[85][88] Blizzard posted a message on their official forums
regarding the issue that has since been removed.[85][89] The original
message was: "Screens that are light on detail may make your system
overheat if cooling is overall insufficient. This is because the game
has nothing to do so it is primarily just working on drawing the
screen very quickly."[85][89]

On Sun, Mar 20, 2011 at 12:52 AM, Rocky Smolin <rockysmolin at bchacc.com> wrote:
> Noah needs to upgrade the graphics card in him comp in order to play
> Starcraft II.  But I don't know anything about graphics cards.
>
> How do you evaluate them? What are the specs/parameters/metrics & blah to
> look for?
>
> How do you know how much card you need?
>
> TIA
>
> Rocky
>
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-- 
Gary Kjos
garykjos at gmail.com