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Diablo 4 Beta GPU Overheating & Drop Rate Debate Explained | GameSpot News

Some Diablo 4 beta players are reportedly experiencing an issue that is causing their GPUs to overheat and break.

The early access beta ran from March 17-19 for those who had preordered the game and even extended partway through March 20, allowing several more hours of play. However, during this period some players came across a problem that would cause their PC to shut down.

One player, jonzie23, told Eurogamer that they encountered the issue while trying to finish their beta time period, saying, "I wanted to wrap up my time with beta on Monday, played for 20 minutes, then my PC shut down unexpectedly. My GPU was so hot that I burnt my fingers when touching the HDMI connector. Luckily it was not permanently damaged. I thought that it's an isolated instance, but I have found some articles saying that more people experienced it actually, and they were not as lucky as I was."

More players took to the Diablo 4 forums to also report similar issues where Blizzard responded, confirming that it's currently aware of this problem, while also offering players some temporary advice on how to avoid an overheated GPU.

The developer said, "The team is working closely with Nvidia to identify affected hardware configurations and gather as many data points as possible to assist in the investigation." Blizzard then shared some instructions to help players which consisted of: turning your PC off then on and seeing if the GPU can be detected under Windows. If it can be found, do a clean driver install.

The good news is that Blizzard has confirmed the open beta features higher than normal drop rates.

The news comes via Diablo general manager Rod Fergusson on Twitter, who responded to a fan question about the drop rate. Fergusson confirmed that the drop rates are increased in the beta for testing purposes.

Fergusson's answer still leaves some room for confusion, however. Most players seem to assume Fergusson was specifically talking about Legendary item drop rates, but his tweet could simply refer to all item drop rates in general. Numerous players responded to Fergusson's tweet with relief in regards to the news, but others are now concerned that drop rates for non-Legendary items in the full version of the game might be too low. Some fans have taken issue with the fact that the drop rate is different in the beta than it will be in the full game, and are now worried what the experience will be like at launch on June 6.

Players had been curious about the drop rate since the start of the game's early access beta period, when numerous Diablo content creators and others on places like the Diablo subreddit remarked on how drop rates seemed incredibly high. Many players were easily able to deck out their characters in full Legendary gear before reaching the beta's level cap of 25 despite only playing on the game's second world tier difficulty. Beating the beta's only world boss, Ashava the Pestilent, awarded a high number of Legendaries in particular, with players reportedly earning up to eight or nine Legendary items for slaying the beast for the first time.