Teflon.Djinn: I just purchased Alan Wake last night, and I must say that the game runs like a dream on my system. Very smooth, for what little I've played so far. However, and this is a big 'However', it seems to tax my GPU harder than ANY other game I've ever played. This included other, newer games and games that have much higher demands on the system, like Deus Ex: Human Revolution, or even the entries in the Crysis series.

When playing Alan Wake, my GPU temperatures can very rapidly exceed 90 degrees C, which is going into the danger territory for most GPUs. I've tried modifying settings to scale them back graphically, turning up my GPU fan, and additionally tried enabling VSync to reduce the number of rendered frames. Unfortunately, the GPU temperatures still seem to skyrocket.

Allow me to preempt criticism of my airflow and system by saying Alan Wake is the ONLY game to do this. Other games that are equally or more demanding don't seem to heat up the GPU nearly so much. Running GPU stress tests with something like FurMark doesn't even tend to crack 85 C, and that's an abnormal situation.

My case is an antec twelve hundred, and I've dusted it just to be sure that no dust buildup is contributing to the heat overload. The problem seems to persist.

I'm running an i7 920 at stock speed, and my GPU is an EVGA GTX 570.

If anyone could offer some advice as to how to potentially reduce GPU usage by Alan wake, or otherwise tweak the game to reduce heat output, I'd be very much appreciated. It's very peculiar to see this as the only game causing such an issue, and I fear that prolonged gameplay very much will cause a serious hardware failure.

Thanks in advance.

Wayrest: Are you using the stock CPU cooler? I know it seems odd that only 1 game makes your CPU run hot, but I had a similar experience with Dragon Age Origins. Back when I had an Athlon II X4 630 CPU my temperatures were 'OK' until I ran DAO, which caused the temperature to skyrocket and gave me system instability. I replaced the stock cooler with an Arctic Freezer 7 Pro, which cost me undre £20 at the time, and the results were incredible. IIRC the CPU went from idling at high 30 to low 40 C to never passing 25 C in the hottest weather.

I'm using an i5 2500k (stock speeds) with an Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 in a Fractal Design Define R3 case, just using the 2 fans that come with the case. My CPU hits 48 C which is the same as in all games (the cooler has capped it at 48 C so far.) It's my GPU that gets unusually hot with this game. It's a GTX 680 and hits 81 C every time I play Alan Wake and hasn't hit 80 C with any other games.

BUT... if you already have a decent cooler, I can't suggest much. I know that some games use the CPU to generate shadows, so you could try reducing/disabling that.