Black Dragon Graphics

[Cordelia Barrowstone]

I recently downloaded Black Dragon to take photos.  It runs fine on my laptop, I don't have a gaming laptop just a cheap one.  Someone told me  to be careful about running Black Dragon because it can burn out and overwork my CPU and graphics card.  Is this true?  Has anyone had computer issues with their laptops after running it?  I'm hesitant to use it for photos and fry my computer.

[Lillith Hapmouche]

And what keeps you from monitoring your temperatures and turning off BD, whenever they might actually get too hot?

[Henri Beauchamp]

There is no risk to ”fry your computer”.

At worst, your CPU or GPU would throttle down their frequency to avoid overshooting their max rated operating temperature (itself a few Celcius degrees below the absolute max temperature). Typically, a CPU that would fry above 105°C will throttle down its frequency to maintain 95°C or below, and should it reach 105°C regardless (e.g. because you'd remove the cooler), it would perform a safety shutdown to avoid burning...

There have been examples of ”frying laptops” in the past, but they all were due to battery failures (and only because of a bad design of the latter).

Edited September 4, 2021 by Henri Beauchamp

[NiranV Dean]

Additionally your hardware will only work as hard as you allow it to run, if you turn everything up you should expect your hardware to work more whereas with default settings you should get similar results to the LL Viewer.

Also, under normal circumstances hardware does not overheat as it is cooled (unless its faulty in which case it could happen everywhere) not even if running at 100% at all times, that is not counting external influence of course. Laptops are generally cooled worse and they produce a lot of heat, having one run at 100% for extended times in a closed room at above average room temperate and no air circulation (or in hot summers for instance) can quickly cause overheating (at which point as Henri pointed out they will start throttling or worst case shutting off) not just your hardware but will most likely turn your room into an oven, but that is to be expected given that heat has to dissipate somewhere and hardware produces heat... but then again who lets their PC run in a hot summer... right? right?!

Edited September 5, 2021 by NiranV Dean