-My PC Specs:

• CPU: Intel Core i9 9900K 3600MHZ
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti
• Motherboard: ASUSTek Maximus XI Hero
• RAM: 4x 8GB DDR4
• CPU Cooling: Kraken X Pump Water Cooler
• GPU Cooling: 2 Internal GPU Fans
• Case Cooling: 3 Smart Device Fans

Q: Can I run Humankind?

Not only can I run Humankind, I far exceed any and all recommended PC parts for this game, as evidenced by PCGAMESBENCHMARK.COM:

I would like to start by stating that this section is not to brag, but just to show what kind of PC I have in order to emphasize the problem I have been facing.

Also I am NOT a game developer, nor am I pretending to be one. But I do have a Bach. of Science in Computer Engineering, with a specialization in embedded programming so I know the basics as to why issues like this can be happening.

-Overheating:

I originally saw this issue during the past two OpenDevs Lucy and Victor. While playing on said OpenDevs, I noticed that my GPU would be overworking itself to run this game. A bit odd, but I thought that is just to the rough unoptimized builds. I was getting 50C on the lowest graphics and 80C on the highest graphics. Just to give some benchmark parameters, I can play League of Legends on the highest graphics 144 FPS at a cool 35-40C, I can play Doom Eternal on high graphics settings 60FPS at a cool 40-45C.

Anyways, I played both open devs on the lowest graphics settings, did the surveys and moved on. Now that we are on the closed beta, I noticed that the issue persisted so I asked on the r/HumankindTheGame subreddit if I was alone in this problem. 

I posted:

" 

I have an RTX 2080 Ti, and this game on the lowest graphics settings heats up my graphics card to 50C, on the highest settings to 80C.

"

And to my surprise I was not the only one encountering this issue, also sorry about the reddit usernames, it is reddit after all:

• User u/Poo_Brain_Horse stated that they had a 3070 GPU and that this game made their graphics card run at 99%.
• Similarly user u/pureideology69 stated while playing Hell Let Loose or Doom they can't hear their fans while playing, but when running Humankind their fans are extremely loud and overworking.
• Lastly, user u/Sancakli stated that they did not encounter this problem at all, and they could run the game on the beautiful graphic settings on their GTX 1050
• User u/Hamura_Otsutsuki recommended for me to share my diagnostics to the game developers, which I can gladly PM to any dev that asks for them.

Overall it appears that some users with higher end graphics cards appear to be having their graphics cards overworked and overheated while playing Humankind. I posted this in the forums already in the thread Very Poor Performance on all Quality Settings (not my thread, another person’s, I just posted there instead of making a new one), with little to no help, so that that is why I am making an entirely new thread to see if I can get some actual help and to see if other individuals are also encounter this overheating issue.

-Optimization:

Q: So what, your expensive Graphics card gets a little hot, what is the big deal? 

The big deal is that it makes the game unplayable, yes Graphics Cards (especially high end ones) can deal with a lot of heat. But let me restate the benchmarks:

• League of Legends: Highest Graphics Settings, 144 FPS: 35-40C
• Doom Eternal: High Graphics Settings, 60 FPS: 40-45C
• Humankind: Lowest Graphics Settings: 50C
• Humankind: Highest Graphics Settings: 80C

Anything over 80C starts causing permanent damage to the hardware, and graphics cards like the 2080 and higher are designed to obliterate modern AAA games, a game like Humankind should not be using us so much of my GPU and overheating it.

I was recently lucky enough to gather some insight due to another game that seemed to have the same problem.

A couple of days prior to the closed beta I bought the game Solasta: Crown of the Magister, basically a Computer DND game. And similarly it was overheating my GPU coincidently to near levels.

• Solasta: Crown of the Magister : Lowest Graphics Settings: 45C
• Solasta: Crown of the Magister : Highest Graphics Settings: 75C

When the issue was raised to the developers, they responded on the Solasta 1.0.22 Patch Notes as following:

"

Known Issues & Work Around

I have a high end GPU (GTX 2070, 3090...) and Solasta keeps overheating my computer!

We found out that the game does not perform properly above 60 FPS :( The solution is to go to the graphic setting and either 

"

I attempted the fix of capping my FPS to 60, and it worked.

Afterwards these were my GPU temperatures:

• Solasta: Crown of the Magister : Lowest Graphics Settings: 30C
• Solasta: Crown of the Magister : Highest Graphics Settings: 50C

This is a massive difference, and now completely acceptable due to the GPU I have.

The problem being that you cannot edit the FPS of Humankind, and the graphics are set in presents and cannot be edited separately. Nor can the closed beta be added to the Nvidia Geforce Experience App in order to force it to lock at 60 FPS. So there is no way to test if the Solasta solution works on Humankind.

-Conclusion & TL;DR:

In summary; I have a high end gaming PC and it seems that Humankind is overheating my PC to the point of almost permanent hardware damage.

This is not an isolated case and other users with high end gaming PCs and/or high end Graphics Cards seem to be having a similar problem.

If any dev could give insight as to why this is happening that would be greatly appreciated.

I love this game, and pre-ordered it, but if this overheating issue persists it will be unplayable to some consumers at launch.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post, if I have accidently violated any rules or regulations in this thread, please let me know I will adjust it accordingly in order to meet the proper standards.

Just wondering, what versions of Microsoft Visual C++ do you have (You can check things in Setting -> Apps -> Apps and Features)? Apparently some non-performance issues were related to that (see: Stuck with Edgar Allen Poe, Downloaded Game on Steam. Crashes on Start Up.), and I was wondering if it was possible performance issues could be caused by it,

Seeing the same using Afterburner, GTX 1660Ti, 99% usage and VRAM almost maxed out before turn 50, posted in a different thread. Serious optimization work needed before release. This might be a killer, and I want HK to succeed (veteran of 4x and of Civ since 1991 here).

FlamingKetchup wrote:

Just wondering, what versions of Microsoft Visual C++ do you have (You can check things in Setting -> Apps -> Apps and Features)? Apparently some non-performance issues were related to that (see: Stuck with Edgar Allen Poe, Downloaded Game on Steam. Crashes on Start Up.), and I was wondering if it was possible performance issues could be caused by it,

I have read that thread and I have all the vcredist files from 2005 to 2019, this appears to help individuals that are stuck in either a loading loop on startup, or with crashes throughout the game. Sadly it does not appear to help with performance, GPU is still overheating.

Aristos wrote:

Seeing the same using Afterburner, GTX 1660Ti, 99% usage and VRAM almost maxed out before turn 50, posted in a different thread. Serious optimization work needed before release. This might be a killer, and I want HK to succeed (veteran of 4x and of Civ since 1991 here).

Thank you for voicing that you are another user affected by this issue, I agree that this game needs to be fixed for this issue prior to release. Otherwise it will be unplayable to some consumers. 

Thanks for writing such a comprehensive post...

I am nowhere near as able to do some sophisticated games/heat analysis, but I as I said in the other thread, this game and its tremendous heat overload is very sad.  Perusing Steam, you find many with this problem.  I do not know nor can I guess what the issue is, but I have above recommended specs and cannot play without overheating, basically not more than 12ish (thoughtful) turns.

It's a pity.  I cannot explore this game enough to give feedback, let alone to actually finish a session.

NickChristie wrote:

Thanks for writing such a comprehensive post...

I am nowhere near as able to do some sophisticated games/heat analysis, but I as I said in the other thread, this game and its tremendous heat overload is very sad.  Perusing Steam, you find many with this problem.  I do not know nor can I guess what the issue is, but I have above recommended specs and cannot play without overheating, basically not more than 12ish (thoughtful) turns.

It's a pity.  I cannot explore this game enough to give feedback, let alone to actually finish a session.

Thank you for voicing out and and sharing that you as well are suffering from this issue, the more people we encourage to voice this concern the more likely we are to get the developers to notice and take action. Also no need to thank me, I am just doing this because I really like this game and have the basic technical knowledge due to my degree. I hope more people voice out so that we can get this fixed prior to launch. I honestly believe is it an optimization issue and an FPS cap of 60 option in the settings would fix this. But it's all theory till a developer speaks up.

In the mean time upvoting and commenting on this post helps a lot.

NO, I don't think it's related to VSync, so a cap on FPS will not solve it. VSync is already capping the FPS at 60 anyways. It's also not related directly to thermals, because I am not seeing abnormal temps for a game like this (but my fan curves are customized, plus my 1660Ti is the one with double overkill fans from EVGA).

I think it has more to do with inefficient use of GPU resources, which in some cards create overheating and others not so much. The common factor seems to be overload of resources (GPU at 99% usage and VRAM maxed out no matter what amount). That points to VRAM memory leak, overdrawing of graphical artifacts, or similar.

I am beta testing Distant Worlds 2 and a few weeks back they had the same problem, and it ended up being that the engine was drawing thousands of graphic elements that were not needed and did not have to be rendered all the time. They fixed it by just correcting that issue.

Maybe something similar is going on here?

Aristos wrote:

NO, I don't think it's related to VSync, so a cap on FPS will not solve it. VSync is already capping the FPS at 60 anyways. It's also not related directly to thermals, because I am not seeing abnormal temps for a game like this (but my fan curves are customized, plus my 1660Ti is the one with double overkill fans from EVGA).

I think it has more to do with inefficient use of GPU resources, which in some cards create overheating and others not so much. The common factor seems to be overload of resources (GPU at 99% usage and VRAM maxed out no matter what amount). That points to VRAM memory leak, overdrawing of graphical artifacts, or similar.

I am beta testing Distant Worlds 2 and a few weeks back they had the same problem, and it ended up being that the engine was drawing thousands of graphic elements that were not needed and did not have to be rendered all the time. They fixed it by just correcting that issue.

Maybe something similar is going on here?

That could be an issue as well, but once again it is all speculation until a dev tells us what is causing the overheating issue.
Till then just encourage others when they share their overheating issues and upvote this thread to gather more attention towards it.

It is all we can do for now.

Just wanted to say that I had to quit out of the beta after about 2 minutes due to graphic card overheating. I also have an Nvidia 2080 ti, and all of my hardware is well above recommended specs similar to OP.

Very disappointing. 

I don't have the bestest machine, but it's close.  My Ryzen 9 5900x + RTX 3080 was also having the graphics card pegged.

I definitely put the game through its paces in terms of graphics (i9-9900K @ 5GHz & RTX 3090 playing in 4k), and there were quite a few times where it was chugging along with random fps drops that would turn my room into a sauna with it hitting 75C at times. Granted you can possibly chalk that up to having the graphics turned all the way up on 4k, but I've not had that level of heat even come close when comparing it to Civ 6 and that game's graphics, and my fps is usually very stable. I definitely believe there is some optimization issues here, as I've never had this card get this hot before, especially as I specifically built my case to maintain temps to below 50C. I otherwise am very impressed with the game itself, but this graphics/overheating issue is a bit worrisome to me for the same reasons that OP mentioned, as this is a game I could easily put hundreds of hours into but would never want to have my card endure hundreds of hours of 75C+ temps. 

Hello!

Thank you for the in depth post! We've been investigating this.

If you are encountering this and have not already done so, please let us know what your video card and CPU are (or a DxDiag if you're willing to provide one). It would help us greatly!

Thank you!

Hello everybody,

There is a workaround for this, but it is a bit technical, so please be careful with this:

Go do "Documents/Humankind/User/[alpha-numeric code]" and open the registry file there with a text editor.

Find the "<Display>" section in this document.

At the end of this section, add the following line: <MaxFrameRate>30</MaxFrameRate>

When you're done, it should look something like this (with the appropriate resolution and quality level and your desired framerate, of course):

<Display>
<DisplayMode>FullscreenWindow</DisplayMode>
<Resolution>3840x2160 (0)</Resolution>
<VSyncCount>0</VSyncCount>
<QualityLevel>Medium</QualityLevel>
<MaxFrameRate>30</MaxFrameRate>
</Display>

This will limit the framerate and should help with the overheating issues.

Bankipriel wrote:

Just wanted to say that I had to quit out of the beta after about 2 minutes due to graphic card overheating. I also have an Nvidia 2080 ti, and all of my hardware is well above recommended specs similar to OP.

Very disappointing. 

It really is, and yea you want to be careful with constant heats at this level.
it also sucks to see all the streams with beautiful graphics, while all we see are pixels at 50-60C

ExoByte wrote:

I don't have the bestest machine, but it's close.  My Ryzen 9 5900x + RTX 3080 was also having the graphics card pegged.

You have a very powerful machine my friend, a game like this should not be giving you this much trouble.

Your graphics card is literally design to play the newest AAA games at the highest settings with temps ranging from 40-60C

Justin848 wrote:

I definitely put the game through its paces in terms of graphics (i9-9900K @ 5GHz & RTX 3090 playing in 4k), and there were quite a few times where it was chugging along with random fps drops that would turn my room into a sauna with it hitting 75C at times. Granted you can possibly chalk that up to having the graphics turned all the way up on 4k, but I've not had that level of heat even come close when comparing it to Civ 6 and that game's graphics, and my fps is usually very stable. I definitely believe there is some optimization issues here, as I've never had this card get this hot before, especially as I specifically built my case to maintain temps to below 50C. I otherwise am very impressed with the game itself, but this graphics/overheating issue is a bit worrisome to me for the same reasons that OP mentioned, as this is a game I could easily put hundreds of hours into but would never want to have my card endure hundreds of hours of 75C+ temps. 

I built my case to maintain around 50C as well. That's why anything above that is an immediate red flag for me.

I already have close to 50 hours in total in this game, and the only way I have been able to manage the 50C is in the lowest graphics settings.

Saikana wrote:

Hello!

Thank you for the in depth post! We've been investigating this.

If you are encountering this and have not already done so, please let us know what your video card and CPU are (or a DxDiag if you're willing to provide one). It would help us greatly!

Thank you!

Thank you for reaching out, and honestly this is my first time doing something this in depth for a game.

I love strategy games, I grew up on them and Humankind appears to be the magnum opus of historical strategy games.

So I was happy to help.

So far it appears that any graphics card after the release of the 2080 series is suffering from this issue, so any graphics card after 2018.

• RTX 2080 series released in 2018
• GTX 1660 series released in 2019
• RTX 3080 series released in 2021

Obviously there are more cards that could potentially be suffering from this, but those in this family of series of graphics card appear to be the most likely to suffer from the overheating.

Once again thank you so much for helping and reaching out.

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:

Hello everybody,

There is a workaround for this, but it is a bit technical, so please be careful with this:

Go do "Documents/Humankind/User/[alpha-numeric code]" and open the registry file there with a text editor.

Find the "<Display>" section in this document.

At the end of this section, add the following line: <MaxFrameRate>30</MaxFrameRate>

When you're done, it should look something like this (with the appropriate resolution and quality level and your desired framerate, of course):

<Display>
<DisplayMode>FullscreenWindow</DisplayMode>
<Resolution>3840x2160 (0)</Resolution>
<VSyncCount>0</VSyncCount>
<QualityLevel>Medium</QualityLevel>
<MaxFrameRate>30</MaxFrameRate>
</Display>

This will limit the framerate and should help with the overheating issues.

But that is the purpose and work of VSync.